Highlights from GPM’s South East Asia Working Group

Last month, the GSMA Green Power for Mobile Programme hosted another successful South East Asia Regional Working Group in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. More than 30 delegates from mobile operators, vendors, energy service companies and development partner attended the event. The event showcased multiple operators’ experiences, new technology & innovations, as well as business models.

We invited Hello Axiata of Cambodia, CamGSM of Cambodia, Beeline of Cambodia and Ncell of Nepal to share their experiences.  Hello Axiata kicked off with a presentation about the Cambodian market which illustrated that Cambodia has no national grid and heavily depends on importing power from neighbouring countries. CamGSM (brand name Cellcard) showcased their achievement of deploying 1,500 solar sites which is approximately 66% of their total network. CamGSM’s target to reach is 80% of the network. As part of a network modernisation project, 53% of sites were upgraded to more energy efficient technologies. In their presentation, Beeline showed the Working Group that 61% of their network is in off-grid areas, with a maximum number of outdoor sites. Beeline is pursuing to adapt cost-effective green solutions, but it is facing huge challenges of CAPEX investment. Ncell brought a very insightful case study to the working group. It walked the delegates through the transition of Ncell over the last few years and reasons for considering renewable solution as a key component for their all new and upcoming deployment.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) talked about the background of collaborating with GSMA on Green Power initiatives and described the future plan of this programme.

Following a GSMA showcase of global fuel cell deployment, Idatech talked about the current development of fuel cell technologies along with a comparative analysis of different fuel cell technologies. In addition, Smart Hydro Power talked about their recently developed pico-hydro solution for telecoms and how it can be a real alternative power source.

Huawei gave a quick overview of their contributing efforts toward green initiatives and pursuing excellence in the global telecom environment. Alta Energy, an Energy Service Provider, shared their experience and findings of green energy for telecom towers. They talked about the easy of deploying outdoor sites (off-grid or grid deficit sites) using green power.

Working Group members also participated in breakout sessions: one for network operators and the other for vendors and service providers. The topic ‘Industry barrier to deploy green power, and how infrastructure share can assist green deployment faster’ was discussed, with both groups identifying their concerns and suggestions.

For more information about this Working Group, download the summary.

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