Telecom tower providers including Bharti Infratel, Viom Networks and Indus Towers are planning to reduce their operating costs by committing themselves to green power. The companies have proposed for setting up independent renewable energy companies that will generate and supply green power to run towers. Sounds interesting.
Usually these towers run on electricity or diesel (where availability of electricity is scarce). With the new proposal, the towers will run on self sustaining energy sources which can drastically reduce the costs.
Due to irregular power supply in the country, about 60% of India’s 400,000 telecom towers depend on diesel generators and, according to TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), consume nearly 2 billion litres of it every year. The regulator has ordered to reduce the dependency on diesel and cut carbon emissions by running at least 50% of all rural towers and 20% of the urban towers on hybrid power by 2015.
The company behind tower infrastructure providers across the country, Taipa, is already working on the proposal made and will be coming up with methods to reduce the amount of energy and sources that are currently exhausted.
Renewable sources of energy are crucial for a country like India and it is required in almost every sector including telecom. Let’s hope this proposal is met with positive results.