Warner Bros. Now Shooting Solar-Powered Movies

Shooting “on location” isn’t just a bunch of actors and a camera in the desert. It entails a full-on base camp — trailers, trucks, equipment, lights, portable kitchens, stars, starlets and probably some explosions and a pet labradoodle or two. All that plus a laborious shooting schedule demand a lot of reliable electricity, all while being instantly mobile.

Until recently, diesel generators provided the reliable power necessary to keep a blockbuster on schedule. But now, Warner Bros., as part of overall efforts to reduce their environmental impact, is using the largest portable solar power system on the market to film on location. Designed and produced by Pure Power Distribution specifically for movie sets, the Mobile Solar Power System pumps out an incredible 600 amps (72,000 watts) of solar electricity.

It’s amazing not only for how much power a single mobile system can put out, but also just how much power a film set requires (and how much dirty power other films are consuming right now).

Also known simply as the S48T, it creates all that clean power with 36 200-watt solar panels mounted on a 48′ custom-hydraulic platform that sets the panels at optimal tilt no matter where the system is parked. The panels also track the sun across the sky each day to facilitate maximum output. The entire system can fold out in minutes, provide oodles of solar power all day and then fold up easily at night or when it’s time to move on.

According to Pure Power Distribution, the S48T offsets a carbon of CO2 emissions every day it runs, keeping the 40 or so other carcinogens found in diesel fuel out of the air as well. The S48T has already solar-powered Leonardo DiCaprio’s latest film, Inception, and is also set to power a new Steve Carell film. The first two of many, I dare say.

Pure Power also manufactures a solar hybrid system that runs on solar and B20 biodiesel. That system can be scaled to power anything from the average home to large operations, like the film base camps the S48T is built to handle.

Posted on May 19th in Solar News by Dan.