A music festival globally renowned for its environmental sustainability practices, Pickathon announces a huge step towards the future of a truly Zero Emissions festival. Partnering with Toyota Racing Development (TRD USA) and the Pacific Northwest Toyota Dealers Association (PNTDA), Pickathon 2023 will be the first ever music festival to use a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Generator to power stages.
Based on Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology developed for the Toyota Mirai road car, this one-of-a-kind generator will make its music festival debut at Pickathon, powering multiple stages and equipment with the only emissions being clean air and pure water. Created by TRD USA with the support of Toyota's Fuel Cell Solutions Group, the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Generator utilizes nothing other than hydrogen gas and oxygen from the surrounding air and outputs no harmful emissions, a major revolution in clean power generation. It is a key part of Pickathon's innovative efforts to create a Zero Waste, Zero Emissions ethos for all music festivals.
TRD USA's Hydrogen Generator is a bold move away from fossil fuels and carbon emissions for portable, on-site power generation. The machine makes virtually no noise and emits no smoke, vibration, combustion, or hot exhaust into the atmosphere. The 50KW generator is a sustainable power solution replacing noisy and polluting diesel generators and is part of Toyota's ongoing efforts of providing clean power.
"We've been excited about Zero Waste and Zero Emissions for years now," says Zale Schoenborn, Pickathon's founder. "Zero emissions is a much harder goal because of the extensive power needs of a major festival. With the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Generator, we now have the technology needed to make festivals zero emissions events. We're demonstrating this for the first time for a music festival ever and are incredibly proud of this partnership."
Pickathon was hand-selected by TRD USA as the first music festival to premiere the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Generator because of the festival's reputation for developing internationally adopted green festival practices. Since 2010, Pickathon has been pushing towards a Zero Waste, Zero Emissions ethos for the festival, initiating key practices that have been widely adopted by other festivals. To achieve Zero Waste, Pickathon has nearly eliminated plastic and all single use dishware in favor of reusable and rewashable cups and dishes. To achieve Zero Emissions, Pickathon incentivizes biking or taking mass transit to the festival, uses solar power on select stages, and redesigned the entire festival last year to incorporate stages into the natural cycles of the day, greatly reducing emissions from set-up, breakdown, and equipment installation. This year, TRD USA's Hydrogen Fuel Cell Generator is a revolutionary step towards achieving the dream of a Zero Emission music festival.
"It's amazing to collaborate with Pickathon to make this year more sustainable than ever and help set the precedent for future music festivals and events," says Russ Humberston, President of the Pacific Northwest Toyota Dealers Association. "Toyota is dedicated to making the community a better place for all, and having the opportunity to power this beloved Oregon music festival with clean power is an honor."
The event falls within the geographic boundaries of the Pacific Northwest Toyota Dealers Association, which consists of all 23 dealers within the Southern Washington area and state of Oregon.
