Pilot result: All the pow­er need­ed at Frozen Peo­ple fes­ti­val could be self-gen­er­at­ed

Frozen Peo­ple fes­ti­val was organ­ised for the first time on 12th March 2022 on the sea ice in Nal­likari, Oulu, Fin­land. A hybrid off-grid pow­er sta­tion was pilot­ed at the fes­ti­val to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty for illu­mi­nat­ing art instal­la­tions with­in the fes­ti­val area. The organ­is­ers want­ed to use envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly off-grid pow­er at their event.

Ener­gy spe­cial­ist and inven­tor Janne Käpyle­hto built a pow­er sta­tion con­sist­ing of one wind­mill, three solar pan­els and three exer­cise bike gen­er­a­tors. In total, the pow­er sta­tion gen­er­at­ed 2.6 kWh of elec­tric­i­ty dur­ing the fes­ti­val.

On the fes­ti­val day, the sun was shin­ing from a clear blue sky, so most of the pow­er was gen­er­at­ed by the solar pan­els: 2.4 kWh. The wind was excep­tion­al­ly mild, and the wind­mill gen­er­at­ed only 1 Wh of elec­tric­i­ty. The audi­ence man­aged to ped­al 170 Wh of elec­tric­i­ty.

Illu­mi­nat­ing the art instal­la­tions con­sumed 1.7 kWh. Janne Käpyle­hto esti­mates that if the instal­la­tions had been illu­mi­nat­ed by elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed by a com­bus­tion engine gen­er­a­tor, it would have required 10 litres of petrol and caused 27 kilos of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions. The hybrid off-grid sta­tion did not cause any emis­sions while in use.

“The pilot had a small effect on the car­bon foot­print of the event, but the mag­ic of the off-grid sta­tion lies in par­tic­i­pa­tion and demon­stra­tion. The audi­ence saw where the elec­tric­i­ty comes from and could take part in gen­er­at­ing it,” says Käpyle­hto.

The fes­ti­val gath­ered 1500 atten­dees alto­geth­er. Accord­ing to a sur­vey, 80% of them explored the pow­er sta­tion.

The first step towards a sus­tain­able cul­tur­al cap­i­tal year

At the Frozen Peo­ple fes­ti­val, grid pow­er was utilised for the PA sys­tem dur­ing DJ shows. The festival’s aim is that, in the future, all the pow­er need­ed at the event could be gen­er­at­ed self-suf­fi­cient­ly and eco­log­i­cal­ly.

The PA sys­tem con­sumed 30–40 kWh dur­ing the fes­ti­val. To gen­er­ate this much pow­er self-suf­fi­cient­ly, the off-grid pow­er sta­tion should be ten times big­ger than the one at this year’s event.

Thanks to the suc­cess­ful pilot, Frozen Peo­ple and Janne Käpyle­hto are like­ly to col­lab­o­rate in the com­ing years and car­ry out new pow­er gen­er­a­tion exper­i­ments.

The hybrid off-grid pow­er sta­tion was part of the green inno­va­tion pilots of the Most Sus­tain­able Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture project. Green inno­va­tions for sum­mer events can be sub­mit­ted until 15th May 2022.

The project’s aim is that by the year 2026, when Oulu is the Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture, events in North­ern Ostro­both­nia would be as car­bon neu­tral as pos­si­ble. The Frozen Peo­ple fes­ti­val, organ­ised by Oulu Urban Cul­ture, will be part of the pro­gramme of the cul­tur­al cap­i­tal year.

Pho­tos: San­na Krook, City of Oulu