ZAP Concepts has launched its Smart Power Plan App, to assist event organisers with power advancing, leading to fuel and emissions savings of up to 80%.
Part funded through an Innovate UK research grant, the new App has been designed to give event organisers an easy-to-follow process, to take control of their power advancing and ensure onsite power generation is matched to demand.
ZAP Concepts technical director Tim Benson stated: “As the world moves to introduce carbon reduction targets, the responsibility for an events’ carbon impact lies with the organisers. It has been the generator / power supply companies who have traditionally specified how much of their product an event requires. This new Smart Power Plan App removes that conflict of interest, as it enables the organiser to easily calculate their power requirement in advance. Field trials have already lead to significant savings on hire and fuel costs, whilst also slicing emissions.”
The App calculates, in advance, how much power and energy a production requires and will enable event organisers to employ alternatives to conventional diesel generators, therefore, improving efficiency, minimising diesel consumption and reducing CO2e and tailpipe emissions by up to 80%.
Benson explained how this fully automated system can generate a robust power plan within as little as 72 hours: “It’s a very user-friendly platform, which follows a four-stage process:
1. Power inventory: a link to our comprehensive fixture database is sent to all suppliers who then enter their full equipment inventories
2. Review of site plan: here we look into the feasibility of using any existing mains power infrastructure, together with determining efficient ‘power zones’ to service multiple areas of the site
3. Analysis of power requirements: instead of focusing on just peak power consumption (kW), which is so often the root cause of inefficiencies, the tool also calculates energy used (kWh) over the course of the event. This enables energy storage systems (green batteries) fed from mains or renewables to be accurately specified in place of diesel generators
4. Creation of your bespoke Smart Power Plan with recommendations on how to employ the most sustainable energy mix, which you can then pass onto your chosen power contractor.”
Where productions employ new or bespoke fixtures that do not appear in the equipment database, these can be manually entered into the system. The system is future-proofed, allowing users to easily refer to previous iterations of their power plans and simply adapt these to reflect changes in audience capacities, production specs and site layouts.
ZAP Concepts offers additional consultancy services, including energy monitoring services and onsite support in partnership with an events’ power contractor and in-house production teams.
