Ultra Music Fest becomes first large U.S. festival to be powered by batteries

The flashing lights and pulsating beats at Ultra Music Festival at Miami’s Bayfront Park were powered by batteries. The music fest kicked off on Friday, and made history this year, not for its music, but for sustainability.

Ultra powered a large-scale stage, called the Resistance Cove Stage, with batteries.

Paul Schurink, the founder of Showpower, is the person behind the two large batteries and inverter that will run this weekend.

“This is definitely the power source for events and festivals for the future,” Schurink said.

The setup takes up about one car parking space. There’s the inverter that supplies the power to the stage and two battery units that store the energy. Each battery unit holds four car batteries inside, packing some big power.

“This has a capacity of 330 kilowatt hours, which is enough to power the entire stage for over 10 hours,” Schurink said.

Most festival stages rely on diesel generators, but Ultra’s Resistance Cove Stage will be powered by Showpower’s Smartgrid Battery System. The batteries are independent from the power grid and have an internal cooling system, perfect for Miami’s heat.

They are also easily connected. Schurink said the cables connect with the show equipment and the batteries.

The initiative is funded by non-profit Reverb, making Ultra the first large-scale music festival in the United States to be powered by batteries.

It’s all part of Ultra’s “Mission Home Initiative.”

“It started with only 20 initiatives, and now it’s grown to 65 initiatives that will be here at the festival this year,” said Vivian Hunter, the Director of Sustainability for Ultra Music Festival. “And, we’ve been recognized 12 times by both local and global organizations, including eight awards and honors.”

That includes earning A Green Future’s “Greener Festival” certification last year, being the first U.S.-based event of its scale in more than a decade. It also was the only U.S. festival nominated for the “International AGF Award.”

And while Ultra celebrated this year’s new addition of its zero-emission battery-powered stage, organizers are also hoped to increase other sustainability efforts during the festival.

“We have since 2019, so in only five iterations of the program, we’ve diverted 400,000 pounds worth of waste, and 84,000 pounds of that was actually food, beverages, supplies and materials that we’re giving back to our local community,” Hunter said.