{"id":857609,"date":"2026-08-14T08:54:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T08:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/857609\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T08:54:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T08:54:22","slug":"festival-has-uks-first-hydrogen-powered-main-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/857609\/","title":{"rendered":"Festival has UK’s first hydrogen-powered main stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boomtown in Hampshire has become the first festival in the UK to have a main stage fuelled entirely by UK-produced green hydrogen.<\/p>\n

The stage uses generators that create electricity via hydrogen fuel cells and self-charging Hydrogen Power Unit (HPU) batteries.<\/p>\n

The by-products are water and heat only, meaning zero carbon emissions, fumes, or loud diesel noise, organisers said.<\/p>\n

“We are really keen to pioneer sustainability,” said Ruby Handy, the festival’s operations manager.<\/p>\n

The stage, HydroXL, opened on Friday and its arena can hold up to 20,000 people.<\/p>\n

“We started last year working with a hydrogen company on a smaller scale,” Handy said.<\/p>\n

“This is brand-new technology for the festival industry so we started smaller, we found it worked.<\/p>\n

“Now we have doubled our efforts with it being a main stage.<\/p>\n

“This is an industry first and we are really keen to pioneer the use of hydrogen as a source of energy in the industry.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ruby Handy said Boomtown was using “brand-new technology for the festival industry” [BBC]<\/p>\n

The adult-only festival is this year hosting 77,000, its largest attendance yet.<\/p>\n

But with a heat warning across the South and a drought affecting the region, it has faced issues with dust.<\/p>\n

This is partly due to the festival being based in the South Downs, which has lots of limestone and chalk areas.<\/p>\n

Boomtown has warned festivalgoers to take precautions like bringing face coverings, wearing sunscreen, and staying hydrated.<\/p>\n

“We’ve thought very carefully about fire risks and increased provisions,” Handy said.<\/p>\n

“Our top priority is to make sure the people of Boomtown are safe.”<\/p>\n

There has also been a ban on camping stoves and barbecues.<\/p>\n

\"sign<\/p>\n

The Reparium, where festivalgoers can take broken item to be mended, is back after a successful year last year [BBC]<\/p>\n

In the past seven years the festival’s organisers said it had reduced its carbon footprint by 98%.<\/p>\n

It also features initiatives like The Reparium – bringing once loved items and repairing them<\/a> – like trolleys or instruments.<\/p>\n

And Energy Green has set up a tent to teach people how to solder their own solar panels from scratch.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully people can charge their phones with them,” Callum Clancy who is part of the project said.<\/p>\n

\"two<\/p>\n

Festival goers can learn how to make “solar panels” on site [BBC]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boomtown in Hampshire has become the first festival in the UK to have a main stage fuelled entirely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[298225,49,48,16820,152497,284729,298224,66],"class_list":["post-857609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-boomtown","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-green-hydrogen","tag-hydrogen-fuel-cells","tag-main-stage","tag-ruby-handy","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}