Culture Night to host solar-powered mobile cinema

18 Aug 2014

The solar-powered Sol Cinema

This year’s edition of Culture Night in Dublin on 19 September will feature a unique and environmentally friendly addition: a mobile cinema that is totally solar powered.

Known as the Sol Cinema, the tiny cinema only holds between eight and 10 people and has been almost entirely made from recycled materials, with an emphasis on creating the cleanest cinema available.

The plan for its inclusion in the festival will be to show film and TV projects funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) through its Sound & Vision II Scheme.

There are also plans for a ‘listening lounge’, in which visitors will be able to sit back and listen to a selection of BAI-funded radio programmes.

Artist Jo Furlong created Sol Cinema, which has been quite a challenge to set up in terms of making it as efficient and long-lasting as possible.

“In designing our solar power-supply system, much attention was given to minimising the energy requirement to produce the power for our low-energy LED projector, laptop and lighting,” said Furlong.

“The solar energy-supply system was designed as a low-voltage DC system that eliminated the need for an inverter to produce conventional 220v AC.”

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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