Case Study: And They’re On!: Powering the Cheltenham Festival

To many racing aficionados it is known simply as 'The Festival'. For three days each year over 200,000 people from all over the world make their way to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire for the event. The entire National Hunt season builds up to the meeting which provides jumping enthusiasts with twenty of the most prestigious races on the calendar. No racing fan, serious or not, can afford to miss the Cheltenham Festival.

This year the festival moved into a new era with an extended four day format. Organisers had a lot to live up to. The Cheltenham Festival has been going since the early 1900s with each year being 'bigger and better' than the last. Visitors' have come to expect a heady mix of racing, eating, drinking and betting and that is what Cheltenham must deliver. In order to do this, Cheltenham's organisers' rely on the dedication and resources of their key suppliers to bring the event to life.

This year, for the second time, Power Electrics supplied the generators that powered all of the catering and hospitality facilities, as well as the television coverage of the event. They were awarded the contract by Event Power Services, the principle contractor for Cheltenham. EPS provide all electrical services, both permanent and temporary, for all of the racecourses events. They are responsible for the specification, design, installation, testing, certification and maintenance of these services.

"For the festival, we manage almost 18 megawatts of power from both generator and mains services," said Keith Smith, managing director of EPS. "We also supply a temporary installation with over 1,000 circuits, 30 kilometres of cabling and thousands of individual outlets."

In the lead up to the event EPS will have a number of meetings with the main parties involved in the production of the festival to determine what their power supply requirements will be.

"We meet with the racecourse management, Letheby and Christopher (who control all of the sites catering services), Channel 4, BBC Radio, Air Traffic Control, various Council departments and a host of others. Quite simply, their supplies can't fail." Keith said. "We assess their power requirements and design a distribution system to accommodate this and more, Power Electrics' generators form an integral part of this."

Their generators power television coverage of the event which reaches an audience of around 1.8million, 26% of the daytime audience. The festival is Channel 4's largest outside broadcast, using 35 cameras and 120 staff to bring the event into the living rooms of the UK and Ireland.

Power Electrics generators also enable Letheby and Christopher to cater for 200,000 visitors. During the festival 5,000 catering staff and 2,000 chefs will serve up 20,000 beef burgers, 14,000 portions of chips and 47,000 sandwiches, all washed down with enough Guinness to fill a 50 metre swimming pool!

"Over 10,000 people each day are accommodated in temporary structures which are powered by Power Electrics generators. These include 100 temporary viewing boxes, 30 chalets and 70 trade stands" said Edward Gillespie, managing director of the Cheltenham Festival.

The Cheltenham Festival is second only to the Grand National among the big annual betting events. The official estimate of total on-course betting turnover during the Festival is £40 million- an average of over £2 million per race. Although Tote is supplied via the mains they must have a stand by generator to guarantee they will have no loss of power when the bets are placed.

This year Power Electrics supplied over 50 units of generating equipment to support all of these services. The equipment they supplied ranged from a pair of synchronised 1250kVA containerised sets for the temporary viewing boxes, to the Hushtower lighting sets in the car parks and exits around the racecourse. Two of the main areas used triple sets of 500kVA generators synchronised together. The advantage of this system is the ability to bring generators on line during peak demand and then take them off line with no breaking in power to the customer supply.

"We used our own in house transport fleet to make sure that every piece of equipment was delivered on time. Each generator package had a set date and time for when the power is required, it is vital that we are able to keep the schedule set out by EPS", said Steve Williams.

"This is the first year that Power Electrics supplied the synchronised generators. The intention was to be able to adjust the available power to maintain maximum capability while keeping fuel consumption and emissions to a minimum. We found it to be very successful," said Keith Smith of EPS.

Steve Williams: "Throughout the event our engineers will constantly monitor the generators and check for peak power demands. On a cold day, the fuel consumption can triple in the hospitality areas as heaters switch on and hot drinks are served."

"As race goers keep their eyes on the horses we keep our eye on the equipment ready to supply and replace fuel as it's required!"

Cheltenham 2005 was an enormous success for all those involved with the new four day format proving to be a winner. As this year's events drew to a close EPS and Cheltenham’s other key suppliers were already beginning to plan for next year’s festival. Keith Smith said that EPS are proud to be an integral part of such a prestigious event, "Logistically, the festival is an enormous challenge for us and the other suppliers, but it is very rewarding.