There are estimated 3.5 million base stations around world. Bharti Infratel is one of the largest telecom infrastructure providers, owning 35,000 of India’s some 400,000 towers and share-owners in Indus Towers, which adds a further 100,000. Together, they have been torch-bearers for green energy initiatives within the telecom tower industry and Bharti Infratel’s award-winning GreenTowers P7 programme (a combination of 7 energy efficiency sub-projects) has been one of the foremost of its kind around the world. It also includes the largest solar back-up power implementation at cell sites.
Bharti Infratel recently released a White Paper outlining their GreenTowers P7 Initiative. This release comes timely with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) new regulations around energy efficiency at tower sites. A few of the key highlights from this include:
- Carbon emission reduction targets for the mobile networks by 8% by 2012-2013, 12% by 2014-2015, 17% by 2016-2017 and 25% by 2018-2019
Bharti Infratel’s GreenTowers P7 Initiative will reduce CO2 emissions by 1,54,00 MT/year due to the reduction in diesel consumption by 58.17 million litres/year
- At least 50% of all rural towers and 20% of the urban towers are to be powered by hybrid renewable power (renewable + grid power) by 2015; a further 75% of rural towers and 33% of urban towers are to be powered by hybrid renewable power by 2020
Bharti Infratel’s GreenTowers P7 Initiative is scoped to cover 70% of its network
- All service providers should declare the carbon footprint of their network operations to TRAI. This declaration should be done twice a year. Service providers should develop a ‘Carbon Credit Policy’ in line with carbon credit norms, with the ultimate objective of achieving a maximum of 50% over the carbon footprint levels of the base year (2011) in rural areas and a maximum of 66% over the carbon footprint levels of the base year in urban areas by the year 2020
Bharti Infratel’s GreenTowers P7 Initiative covers 7 high impact initiatives to reduce diesel consumption and, consequently, carbon footprint
These new regulations will have a huge impact on the telecom industry around the world. GSMA’s planned collaboration with Bharti Infratel stands to bring together a host of best-practice sharing opportunities between both organisations, further facilitating innovative and newer prospects around green technology models for tower networks, as well as keeping aligned to TRAI’s new regulations.
The Green Power for Mobile team plans to acquire learnings from Infratel’s experience in deploying green energy sites, so that we can look to make this available to the industry at large and help enable other interested players in adapting these models to their tower networks around the world.
Read Bharti Infratel’s White Paper: Green Networks: Transforming Telecommunications on Sustainable Energy Alternatives