The Stage

Fuel cell success

Published Monday 19 July 2010 at 11:37

Arcola Theatre launched seven of its new HyLight fuel cell-powered lighting systems at this year’s Latitude Festival, held last week in Suffolk, providing lighting for everything from marquees to forest performances, as well as powering laptops, phone chargers and ticket machines. HyLight, claims Arcola, is the first fuel cell product to be developed specifically for the events industry, offering the reliability required through an onboard ‘brain’ that monitors performance and switches to battery back-up in case of fault or user error. Running on hydrogen, with a run-time of 50 hours between refills, the system produces zero emissions and is almost silent. Carbon emission reductions of up to 60% are likely in performance settings through its use of the latest LED lighting. Arcola developed the HyLight cell with a consortium including its regular partners, hydrogen gas producer BOC and events industry supplier White Light, and new partner, Horizon Fuel Cell, manufacturer of the fuel cell at the heart of the unit.