Danish pop band Lukas Graham has teamed up with renewable-technology company Vestas to launch a tour that will replace carbon-emitting diesel generators with transportable batteries.
The six outdoor shows, all to be held in Denmark this August, will be the first on this scale to be powered fully by renewable energy, designed to advance the goal of eliminating CO2 emissions from live concerts. The batteries will be charged with green electricity from one of Vestas’ transformer stations at an offshore wind farm in Denmark.
According to Vestas, an average of nearly 1.5 tons of CO2 per show are emitted by diesel-driven generators commonly used to power lights, sound and other aspects of outdoor concerts.
“As time goes by, I’ve become more aware of the world I live in – aware of the fact, that we’ve got a shared responsibility for our future and that we’ve only got one Earth to pass on to our children,” said Lukas Graham Forchhammer, lead singer of the band which topped the UK chart and hit US No.2 with ‘7 Years’.
“My hope for this experiment with Vestas is of course to build a more sustainable future for the live music industry, one I represent when I go on stage. Hopefully, it will inspire people from other industries to seek alternative and greener ways instead of just doing what we know and have always done. It’s the little things that make a big difference – if we do it together.”
Lukas Graham will play two concerts at Copenhagen’s Refshaleøen before dates in Aarhus, Aalborg, Sønderborg and Odense.
Henrik Andersen, chief executive of Vestas, said: “At Vestas, we know the technologies needed to reduce carbon emissions already exist, we just need more industries to use them. Electrification is at the centre of our strategy to build a more sustainable future, and when Lukas Graham reached out, we saw an opportunity to lend our expertise to their vision of building a more sustainable future for music.
“By replacing carbon emitting power sources with our battery concept, we can almost eliminate carbon emissions from the live performance and pave the way to potentially scale up this solution in the future.”
Image: Lukas Graham (Facebook)