Telecom towers to be run with solar energy
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, May 12 2011: Mobile phone towers operating in the state are to be powered by solar energy, a step to cut pollution and to lessen or exclude diesel consumption while operating the towers.

Authorities of some mobile tower operators in Imphal, said they had started taking up work for replacement of diesel power generation system with DC solar power systems of the Alta Energy Technologies.

Alta-Xintong Solar Tech Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between Bangalore-based Alta Energy Technologies Pvt Ltd and Chinese solar system solution provider XinTong, has launched DC solar power systems for power telecom towers in India recently.

The company has tied up with an international financial institution to finance deployment of solar power systems.

The system would support the operators to run their new towers through solar power, reducing dependency on diesel powered systems which are currently under use.

Around 700 towers of cellphone operators such as Aircel, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Tata Indicom, Reliance Communication are operating in the state.

These towers consume around 21,000 litres of diesel per day, at the rate of 30 litres per tower per day.

Most of them have to run round the clock on diesel power generators.

The quantity of diesel consumed by the towers per month is 6,30,000 litres whichis 75,60,000 litres per year.

Once the DC solar power system is introduced, the said quantity of exhaustible fuel can be saved, the mobile phone providers believe.

For the country also, over 30,000 towers out of the total of 300,000 telecom sites are situated in off-grid rural locations and run round the clock on diesel power.

Besides, it is estimated that around 36,000 sites are expected to be erected every year in India.

Over 200 crore litres of diesel are used every year by these cell towers.

Recently, the Centre has taken up steps to make it mandatory for mobile phone towers to be powered by solar energy, hoping to cut pollution and diesel consumption in the country.

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