Aalborg Municipality co-invents a mobile green power generator

The authorities wanted to provide clean energy to cultural events and festivals

The Danish city of Aalborg has the ambition not just to be European Green Capital in a particular year, but to be known as Europe’s green capital altogether. Fresh news emerging from this Nordic city underscored the fact that this ambition is not just an empty claim either.

On 1 October at 16:00, a local concert by singer Dorthe Gerlach will also serve as the premiere and test run of a new mobile green power generator, which will serve as a clean alternative to the usual diesel generators used at outdoor cultural events.

The cool thing is that the power generator, which generates electricity from solar rays, was created upon the initiative of the municipal authorities, who wanted to do something about providing more sustainable energy to the local cultural scene.

What’s in the box on wheels?

What followed was a one-year collaboration between the municipality, Aalborg University, national organizations and companies from the municipality's business community and several of Aalborg's cultural institutions to develop the idea into a working product.

“We can make concerts and events greener, and this is largely due to our fantastic educational institutions, which are geeks and innovators, and their good cooperation with businesses and authorities. To be a leader, it is crucial that we develop green solutions together," explains Lasse Frimand Jensen, the mayor of Aalborg Municipality.

The result was a small trailer equipped with 9 solar panels, which can generate up to 80 kW of electricity, and if the weather is cloudy, it can be charged through the grid.

What’s more, its small size makes it more mobile and, as a consequence, more sustainable as well. It weighs about 1,300 kilograms and can thus be pulled by an ordinary passenger car, rather than by a truck.

For its first trial in Skørbæk (the concert venue), backup power is available in the lake pavilion, but for the next event on 4 October – a Juncker concert in the campfire cabin in Tylstrup – it will be run without a safety line, and the battery trailer will supply the power for the entire event.