The staging industry has been looking for ways to go green. But Sustainable Waves seems to be the first to actually make the stage itself eco-friendly: the roofs of their four portable stages are lined with solar panels that are connected to a bank of 14-volt batteries beneath the stage. On a clear day, the stage can be powered directly from the energy collected by the solar panels, with an in-line inverter transforming the solar-generated DC electricity to alternating current. At night, the power source is shifted to the batteries, which can hold between four and seven hours worth of continuous 60-amp/120-volt AC power. Even on cloudy days, the panels can still collect solar energy at a lower rate. In the rare instance when they have to resort to a generator, it’s fueled with biodiesel.
From “The Biz” by Dan Daley, PLSN, July 2009
