Why Bryan Adams's P.E.I. concert was a step forward for solar power
CBC
When Bryan Adams opened his North American tour on P.E.I. on Aug. 31, people behind the scenes were attempting another first that he didn't know about.
The concert was being held in Summerside, and the small city's electrical utility was trying to make the concert the first evening concert in North America to be entirely solar-powered.
BluWave-ai, the company whose software powers Summerside's smart grid, came up with the idea.
The plan involved adjustments to the grid that required the city's permission — and Summerside's director of economic development said the city jumped at the opportunity.
"To showcase our capabilities as a leading North American municipality, we decided to deliver a 100-per-cent green solar energy concert experience at our arena," Mike Thususka told CBC News.
The city has a large solar farm adjacent to Credit Union Place, the arena where the concert was being held. Since the show was at night, that meant all systems would have to run off battery power from energy that had been collected during the day.
Devashish Paul, the CEO of BluWave-ai, said this requirement made the opportunity stand out as a potential North American first.
"There are some venues with solar power, but not with battery storage," he said.
The success of the experiment was by no means a sure thing. There were two key unknowns.
The company could make estimates, but it didn't really know how much energy it would take to power the sound, lights, and even air conditioning for the huge space.
In the end, Paul said, they were sure the battery would have enough capacity — 276 kW, roughly what it would take to run 3,000 100-watt light bulbs for three hours — to get through the concert.
And there was the second concern.
"What's Mother Nature going to give on that day? Because what Mother Nature gives and Bryan Adams uses kind of has to match up," said Paul.
"It was going to be a partially cloudy, partially sunny day, and it was a bit fickle in terms of cloud coverage. So basically we felt like there was a chance that it would all work out, but we didn't really know."