While I, like Foolestroupe, have the typical ol'-fart distaste for amplified noise, he's a lot younger than I am, so he'll get even worse eventually.

The problem of "portable" or "remote" electrical power is a very real one for those who camp, including especially those of us who go to extended festivals. At the WVA festival, I usually plan on arrival approximately 3 weeks prior to the start of the fest to get in line for the line to get in line for the lineup that determines who gets first run at the limited number of outlets available.

Being "power self-sufficient" would be really nice, so if someone comes up with something that really works, I'm sure a lot of us would like to hear about it.

There are no portable generators on the market, that I've been able to find, that are not too noisy to be acceptable in a campground, although for limited use you might get by with running one of the quieter ones periodically, and briefly, to recharge storage batteries.

On the US market, Coleman makes a fairly quiet "camp generator" and a couple of other makers use a larger but reasonably quiet Honda engine for small configurations. Not really quiet enough for a music campground, but perhaps good enough for a "sales venue" or where there's a fair amount of crowd noise. The really small ones would likely have marginal output capacity for the use described, and they are not particularly fuel-efficient and require frequent refueling. (If you have more than a once-in-a-lifetime need, and a place for storage, buying a generator may be ultimately cheaper than renting.)

Even in (sometimes) sunny Kansas, solar recharging could take care of part of the recharge requirement for minimal use such as camp lights and perhaps even a bit of TV, but it would take larger (and more expensive) than commonly available "mobile" solar panels to keep up with more than "incidental" use. (Solar panels can provide some power in overcast/foggy conditions, but I won't comment on their relative usefulness in the UK.) With solar, even keeping sufficent charge to assure that the furnace will work if it turns cold is marginal. And with solar, as with small generators, you need lots of batteries.

Installed RV generator systems in a reasonably large RV can be made quiet enough to produce only minimal objections from fellow campers, but an installation is expensive. Typical generator sizes run from about 3 to 5 KW, quite similar to the most popular sizes in "portables." That's about enough to run one 10-15 KBtu air conditioner, OR everything else one's likely to have,but not both at the same time. While you can run the generator whenever you want to use the "big appliances" it's not too fuel efficient to have them running all the time, so the usual setup is to charge a bank of 2 to 6 batteries, and use a solid state inverter to produce AC for things that need it. A good inverter can also provide "clean enough" AC for electronics that might barf at direct generator power. A significant part of the rather stunning installation cost for the self-contained units is for the ¹5 KW (or larger) inverter you need for this system - starting at around $700 US for a minimal one; and of course the batteries aren't free, are really heavy, and require regular maintenance.

¹ With a 3KW generator, you need at least a 5KW inverter, because you can take power out of the batteries much faster than you can put it back in.

For a one-day setup, using less than 1KW for 8 hours or less, one might be able to get a smaller inverter and simply run off batteries for a day. Truck stops sell "near 1KW" inverters for about $150 - $250 for truckers who want a TV and Refrigerator in the sleeper, although I haven't shopped around to see if better deals are available. Whether a half-dozen batteries (about what's in a golf cart) might suffice to keep you running all day, with overnight recharging from an outlet you could take the batteries and charger to, would depend on battery sizes and quality. I've made some calculations on this, on the assumption I could take the batteries and a small generator outside the campground for a few hours of recharging. A practical setup for my situation isn't easy to come up with since the load is extremely variable and not really predictable; but if one had a specific appliance to run for a known, consistent, and predictable time between charging, it might be feasible.

When I find the perfect low-cost fuel-efficient no-noise solution, I'll be sure to pass it along; but for now I'm still looking - and have been for at least 5 years or so. I've found some "really exciting concepts," but nothing ready for market as yet.

John