Do you know how Solar can empower the telecom industry?

When we talk about off-grid solar applications, one of the industries with massive power requirements is the telecom Industry. India is the second-largest telecom market in the world with 1.2 billion cellular users. This phenomenal growth is expected to rise further in the years to come, all thanks to the robust demand for cellular connectivity and its services. Telecom companies are continuously trying to find solutions to fight the competition by making their services affordable to the urban and rural populations.

With the increased demand for connectivity, telecom industry is penetrating new markets to maximize their teledensity in remote locations with mountains, forests and deserts, where grid power is a distant dream.  In remote locations, companies rely either on the diesel generators or grids for electricity requirements. According to Greenomics, around 70% of the approximately 4,00,000 mobile towers in India face electrical grid outages because of no-grid or poor grid issues which increase the need for a backup power source.

Diesel generators are quite costly to operate and increase the cost of operations by more than 35%. They also harm nature by toxic CO2 emission in the atmosphere. Although, grid supply in remote areas is unreliable because of frequent power cuts and if it is reliable, then there are high electricity bills to follow.

India is the third-largest consumer of oil. Telecom industry of India consumes 2.5 billion litres of diesel and emits 6.6 million metric tons of CO2 annually. These stats make DG set an unattractive solution in the long run. To curb the menace, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) and DOT (Department of Telecommunication) has joined hands with a mission to reduce carbon emission by 2020.

Power contributes to 1/4^th of total network cost, one of the crucial areas where telecom providers are struggling to cut costs. The increasing cost of electricity and lower affordability make telecom providers feel as if they are skating on thin ice. To combat these significant challenges, clean energy can be a pivotal component of telecom infrastructure.  It is all set to play a vital role in the development of adequate infrastructure for energy-intensive industries.

Telecom providers have started embracing solar power as a reliable source of electricity. Solar energy is an economically feasible option in remote locations which are either off-grid or have to deal with unreliable grid or are battling high diesel consumption to run DG (Diesel Genset) to deliver reliable power to remote telecom infrastructure such as BTS (Base Transceiver Station) equipment, repeater stations, Towers, etc. Battery based system can save the high electricity bills and can provide a steady source of electricity throughout the day.