What The Festival gets all-solared up in Oregon

Solamor WhisperWing renewable generator Solamor Event Services is powering up the What The Festival in Oregon’s White River Canyon with its brand-new WhisperWing renewable energy generating station—and a slew of other renewably powered generators. The festival features a slew of national and international dance and DJ acts like Beats Antique, Ghost Observatory, Bonobo and a slew of others. 

All that electronica will be powered by sun, wind and biodiesel, said Tatianna Pavich, Solamor managing director. The company also is building the microgrid which will power the whole festival. “We’re integrating as many energy sources as possible, in order to meet demands of the grid,” she said. 

The grid will be powered by the company’s newest WhisperWing mobile renewable generation station. The station includes eight SolarWorld modules, two wind turbines, a biodiesel generator, an inverter and an eight-bank battery backup, Pavich said. “Basically its output under ideal conditions is 30 kilowatts, 100 amps of silent power—wind and solar together.

It’s the fifth mobile PV generating unit the company has developed. “It’s by far our biggest. The one before his was a hybrid 5 kilowatt WhisperWing [wind and solar],” Pavich said. “Before that we had just a solar generator.” 

The earlier WhisperWing is also traveling to What The Festival. It has an extendable light-tower and WiFi. It will be used to power the festival’s box office and the vendor’s WiFi needs, according to Pavich. 

The rest of the fest will be powered by biodiesel generators with locally sourced biofuels, including locally harvested biofuels and recycled oils. The generators are sourced locally as well.  

Solamor has been using its mobile generators and microgrid capabilities for years, according to Pavich. They’ve helped power sites at Burning Man, for instance. “We’ll do one-off rentals and then we’ll also do full power grids for events like What The Festival,” she said. “What the Fest is a bigger site. We’ll probably have about eight or nine different power generation sites. We’ve done upwards of 30 for temporary power grids.” 

Solamor has designed and produced power for events including the Re:Generation Festival, the Jingle Bell Run, Burning Man, art installations, and others, Pavich sees uses beyond events for such systems. “There’s lot of opportunity out there for mobile power,” she said. Such opportunities include disaster recovery, construction and other mobile applications where there’s no access to electricity.