Instagrid provided portable battery packs throughout the build, live festival and break of Shambala 2024 to reduce the event’s environmental impact.

Instagrid ONE provided clean, reliable energy without the noise or fumes typical of combustion generators, aligning with Shambala’s ethos of environmental responsibility. The team behind the unique festival were able to reduce CO2 emissions significantly while maintaining the festival’s energy needs. With its lightweight and portable design, Instagrid ensured power access in even the most remote parts of the festival, making it an indispensable asset for impact-conscious events like Shambala.

Shambala Festival trialled the use of five Instagrid battery packs for three weeks. The site management team successfully implemented them in various different scenarios in response to requests from wider teams with the above goals in mind.

The management team decided to have three units deployed at any one time and two on charge, so that we could rotate out the units with minimal disruption to the end users.

At peak (during live show) all five units were deployed briefly to necessitate power in remote areas. Due to the longevity of the battery packs, and users often drawing small amounts of power, changeovers during this period were not required, and units were returned partially charged before other requests were made.

Battery packs were charged from a mains grid connection, on a green tariff, provided by 100% renewable energy. Here are some examples of how we did it . . .

Early Power Requirements – Box Office

The main crew box office, operated for three weeks, accrediting crew onto the festival site, using laptops, scanners and wifi for up to 12 hours per day.

To avoid turning on a generator specifically to power the box office cabin, an Instagrid unit was deployed, with a 16A to 13A adapter, and four-way extension cable. This allowed the users to charge various devices and utilise the internet for their work. Due to the low draw on the battery unit, it typically lasted two to three days before being swapped out for a fully charged unit.

This saved approximately 370L of fuel over the duration (2.2L / hour, 12 hours per day for 14 days – based on a 25% load on a 20kVA generator)

Build Power – Rimski’s Yard

A small venue in a remote location at Shambala festival required power and charging facilities for their tools to build set and decor.

Rather than run an extensive amount of cable from the nearest generator (200m+), an Instagrid battery was used on rotation to charge their power tools. The unit was rotated every other day for a week to continually facilitate their power needs.

Emergency Power – Water Mains repair

During the break period of the event, it was necessary to repair a water main that had been severed during the show. At this point the main generator sets, distribution and cabling had been removed from the site.

To access the pipe and stop the surrounding trench from back filling with water, power was required for a sump pump to keep the work area clean.

Two Instagrid batteries were deployed, for a pair of sump pumps. One ran continuously, while a second was installed whilst work was carried out to keep up with the backflow of water from the pipework (1000L+).

Emergency Power – Sanitation Pump

A remote toilet block in a public location required additional pumps to support the storage of liquid waste. Rather than burying a power cable through the public domain during the live show, a battery pack was deployed. The nature of the pump being on-demand, meant that the load on the battery was relatively small, allowing it function across the four days it was in situ.

Not only did this relieve pressure on the power team, but also on the sanitation team.  It avoided repeat call-outs to the same block to remove waste when local storage solutions were available.

Emergency Power – Electric Buggy Charging

As part of Shambala’s greener pledge, the implementation of electric buggies has been phased in over the last few years. Whilst policies around charging from the mains are in place, inevitably some users get caught out and run the battery flat in far flung parts of the festival.

Allowing the plant management team access to these units helped to give some temporary charging facilities to the electric buggies, to give them enough power to return to the boneyard for charging. This was particularly important during live elements of the show where towing a vehicle through a public space was not feasible or safe.

Temporary Remote Power – Recycling Centres

Recycling centres located in the campsites of the festival operated for short periods of time (Sunday and Monday) in remote locations. A temporary power solution allowed staff to use scanners, laptops and wifi. Similar to the box office deployment, three units with adapters allowed the staff to carry out their work.

This avoided siting small generators in each of these compounds, saving both fuel and labour.

This saved approximately 50 L of fuel per location, and the deployment of three generators

Late Power – Waste Crew Catering

The Waste Management team at Shambala are amongst the teams onsite for the longest duration. In order to maintain their catering unit during the break period, we deployed an instagrid battery pack to continue to power their fridge, and catering unit.

This unit was changed daily and saved approximately 420L of fuel.

The deployment and use of the Instagrid battery packs had an extremely positive outcome on a wide variety of scenarios across the event.

The simple plug and play functionality, along with battery level indicator, allowed end users to notify the site team when their units were close to depleted. This meant that power outages in the remote locations they were deployed were kept to a minimum.

The units alleviated pressure on various teams where ‘unknown’ power requirements crop up, normally on an emergency basis. In some situations, other, more labour-intensive solutions, would have had to be implemented, with greater risk.

Across the festival, the effective use of Instagrid units saved in the region of 1000 L of fuel. Further benefits reducing the deployment of generators, transport and labour, brought financial, operational and logistical wins.