The Byron Bay Bluesfest held on the weekend has shown its environmental side once more with the Lotus Palace Sound System operating off a flower shaped solar power system.

The festival has always promoted green sustainability with the slogan “Waste Wise – Refuse, Reuse, Reduce and Recycle,” but this year they have taken it a step further. Designed by Dr Barry Hill from the Southern Cross University together with their Visual Art Technicians and Students, The project was named the “Sunflower Project.”

The project consists of a 1.2kW off-grid solar power system, shaped like a petal that can be rotated and tilted to the best position to capture the sun. It is the first of its kind in Australia. The solar system cost around $20 000 and it is said to allow for ‘cleaner acoustics’ as it takes out the buzz of a generator.

Dr Barry Hill said, “The aim of the project is to show the way sustainable design principles can be promoted within the Australian music industry, as well as promoting best practice in alternative power generation and energy efficient audio-visual technology.” The Sunflower Project is an ongoing project striving to reach high efficiency audio visual production systems.

Bluesfest director Peter Noble hopes that this investment will become the norm. He said, “This is experimental to us to see if it works and I’d say within four to five years that’s where we’re going to be. If we develop more prototypes next year we could be powering the tent I’m pointing at, which you can’t see of course, that holds probably 3000 people, so we jump from 3 to 400 people to 3000, it’s all happening now.”

The Byron Bay Bluesfest consists of 5 stages, 4 licensed bars, a food court, entertains around 17 500 festival goers each day with 6 500 campers over the weekend. If you would like more information, visit their website for further details.