Emily Eavis explains how Glastonbury 2023 was powered entirely by renewable energy for first time

nme.com:

Emily Eavis has explained how Glastonbury was powered entirely by renewable energy for the first time this year.Organisers previously confirmed ahead of this year’s festival that it would be run entirely using renewable fuel.Now, Eavis has spoken further in a new interview about they managed to achieve such a feat.She told Access All Areas: “Being able to power the entire festival without having to rely on fossil fuels this year has been a real breakthrough, but it is the culmination of lots of baby steps that have seen us steadily increase our use of renewable energy – both from the grid as well as from our own onsite sources like our solar PV array on our cowshed roof and our anaerobic digester that turns waste cow manure into biogas.“We’ve been trialling alternative and renewable fuels for over a decade.

And after some successful trials with virgin, palm oil-free renewable HVO at the last couple of festivals, we decided to use it – in place of fossil oil-based fuel – in all our generators for this year’s festival.”Organisers previously confirmed that the festival has avoided using any fossil fuels since 1984 and will continue to opt for solar, wind and pedal power options on the fields going forward.Eavis has now added: “This year’s switch to renewable fuels is just another step on our journey.

In the long term, we’d like to be using more renewable energy from mains power, ideally generated onsite from solar and wind, and make more use of technology like our anaerobic digester.”She also said they are continuing to work on the carbon footprint of audience travel.Eavis continued: “Around 40 per cent of our audience travel by public or low-carbon transport, which we’re really pleased about.