On the sun-baked lots of Cape Town Film Studios, something unusual happened during the filming of Netflix's One Piece Season 2: the base camp was powered by the sun, not diesel. It was the first solar-powered film base camp ever shot in Africa, and it ran for 24 weeks without burning a single drop of fossil fuel.
The company behind this quiet revolution is Cinergy Mobile Power, a South African startup that recently launched smart, diesel-free power systems designed specifically for the film and live events industries. In a sector that has relied on noisy, polluting generators for decades, Cinergy is offering a cleaner alternative — and South Africa's film industry, already worth billions, is taking notice.
Film productions are energy-hungry beasts. They need power for lights, cameras, catering trucks, craft services, and everything in between. Historically, that meant diesel generators — loud, smelly, and expensive. But battery prices have dropped sharply over the past 15 years, making alternatives more practical than ever. Experts predict prices could fall another 70 percent in the next five years, opening the door for even more industries to go diesel-free.
Cinergy's systems combine battery storage with solar panels in modular units that productions can configure based on their needs. For One Piece Season 2, Cinergy deployed its CineVault — a 400 kilowatt-hour battery paired with 150 kilowatts of solar panels — to run the main base camp. A smaller unit, the CineSprint, powered off-site locations. Combined, these systems avoided an estimated 93 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the course of the shoot.
The benefits go beyond the environment. Diesel generators are loud — a persistent hum that can ruin audio recordings and frustrate crews. Battery-solar systems run silently, eliminating that problem entirely. Cinergy's units also connect to monitoring software, giving production managers real-time data on energy use so they can fine-tune efficiency.
"Energy has become a strategic production variable, affecting schedules, locations, sound, crew well-being, permitting, and budgets," said Abe Cambridge, co-founder of Cinergy Mobile Power. "Cinergy is a practical replacement for diesel that works the way productions and event organisers already operate, but with lower emissions, less noise, greater reliability, and data-backed insights to maximise efficiency."
The timing matters. South Africa's film industry attracted 2.52 billion rand in foreign production investment in 2024, with every rand spent generating an additional 2.50 rand in wider economic activity. But rising diesel costs, stricter local noise and emissions bylaws, and sustainability requirements from international studios like Netflix are putting pressure on productions to clean up their act.
Cinergy says it is the first company in South Africa focused entirely on delivering purpose-built smart mobile power for the film and entertainment sectors. The company plans to expand its reach, bringing quiet, clean energy to more productions and events across the country — and maybe, eventually, across the continent.