Following the Africa Regional Working Group in Kampala, Green Power for Mobile organised its 5th India Working Group in Delhi on June 4-5, in partnership with the IFC. The event was co-hosted by Vodafone and triggered some interesting conversations on the future of green power and its impact on the telecoms sector in India. Fifty delegates from across the industry spectrum – from MNOs to Community Service Providers, including the main Tower Companies Bharti Infratel, Indus Towers and ATC India – attended the Working Group.
The event was a good opportunity to highlight the growing efforts made by TowerCos, as well as MNOs, to deploy green solutions in the Indian telecommunications industry through initiatives like Idea Cellular’s “Green Idea”, an OPEX model replacing fossil fuels by renewable energies to power the network, or Vodafone’s “4-step approach” to going green. These efforts are in line with the country’s high power demand and the increasingly gloomy future for diesel prices (estimated to grow by INR0.5 a month until 2015).
Key elements for green deployments to succeed in India are a solid infrastructure network, reliable long term contracts between the various stakeholders and making sure that all stakeholders align their interests. Raising funds also remains one of the main challenges, making the future of green deployments still unstable in the country.
Below is a detailed review of each speaker’s presentation:
Ferdous Mottakin, GPM Programme Manager, introduced the Working Group by presenting the sizable opportunity for the telecoms industry to go green and the future of tower sharing. Globally in the last two quarters, green deployments have increased by 20% and much of this growth originated in India with Bharti Infratel leading the effort, followed by Idea Cellular and Indus Towers.
The GSMA invited the CEOs of three major tower companies: Bharti Infratel, Indus Towers and ATC India, in a panel to discuss in detail their green strategies. The CEOs answered questions from the audience and explained their aspirations toward green power and expectations towards the industry. They presented a mix of CAPEX and OPEX model strategies; however it was clear that the CEOs expect OPEX models to have a plan to achieve grid parity in terms of kWh rate in the future. They committed to continue deploying green and energy efficient solutions in every possible way.
The operators Idea Cellular and Vodafone then shared their experiences and presented their strategies to successfully deploy green solutions:
Vikas Arora presented the results of Idea Cellular’s renewable energy initiatives in Bihar, using Solar Hybrid, DG Hybrid and Fuel Cell technology. 750 of Idea’s sites are now running on Solar Hybrid (an increase from their 105 in 2011) and reduced by 15 tonnes of CO2 emissions/sites. The DG Hybrid model has been deployed on 20 sites where solar was not feasibility. Both these models have allowed Idea to make OPEX savings without deploying any additional CAPEX. The operator’s first Hydrogen Fuel Cell commercial installation also promises a reduction of CO2/sites of up to 15 tonnes. Going forward, the operator’s “Green Idea” is to use Renewable Energy Technology, based on an OPEX model, to power Telecom Towers in place of Fossil Fuel. To achieve this, they have identified sites with the available space for solar installations and aim to reduce their CO2 emissions by approximately 288 tonnes.
A. Naranya gave an overview of Vodafone’s green strategy for the upcoming years in light of India’s energy needs. Around 65% of towers are located in rural area where grid availability is between 8 -12 hours and where a lack of stable grid access is synonymous of DG dependence. The operator’s Renewable Energy Technology 2015 target is to have 44,300 green sites deployed. Vodafone has started to deploy solar and, to a lesser extent, biomass sites while they are still evaluating the feasibility of wind and fuel cell deployments. Mr. Naranya presented Vodafone’s 4 step approach to Going Green and their results so far. As their sustainability report highlights, they have been nominated ‘Green Telecom Company of the Year 2012’ with a deployment of various energy efficiency solutions at 30% of their sites.
Vodafone achieved a reduction of 10.5% diesel, resulting in an overall CO2 reduction of 3.6% for 2011-12. Finally, Mr. Naranya highlighted the need for the regulators and TowerCos support to continue the greening of the network.
Intelligent Energy showcased the vendor’s 3 step-engagement process to renewable energy for telecoms in order to answer India’s power demand. Step 1 will help telecom companies benchmark their existing sites to then in Step 2 optimise their operational equipment. Step 3 will focus on introducing new technologies to improve sites’ energy efficiency and allow sites to scale. Intelligent Energy depicted a gloomy future for diesel prices, evaluating the cost of diesel to grow INR 0.5 month until 2015 and making Renewable Energy a more economical option. IE suggests that following those 3 steps will allow reducing telecoms sites OPEX by 20% and encourage the rolling out of Fuel Cell as one of the most efficient renewable energy source.
KMRI explored the feasibility of supply dependent solutions for telecoms, i.e. fuel cell (hydrogen by cylinder and from methanol) and biomass gasifiers. Right off the bat, RK Caprihan established that for those solutions to succeed, DG batteries needed to be completely removed from the market. Looking in more details at the 2 supply dependent solution, Mr. Caprihan shared his experienced overview of what these entailed – their challenges and requirements. Regional infrastructure remains key to properly distribute renewable energies. KMRI’s solution to supply dependent solutions is integrated, long-term fuel contracts with predictable pricing and supply, originating mainly through sustainable plantation crop farming. The rest will be sourced through identified local sources with biomass residues.
Kapil Kathaplia of Applied Solar Technologies presented the different stakeholders’ expectations of Green Power market. Managing the stakeholders – comprised of OPCOs, ESCOs, Tower Companies and Landlords – and aligning their interests can prove challenging. Kapil said, OPCO wants a reduced energy bill fixed per month with increased uptime, whereas TowerCo considers energy as a venue stream without CAPEX investment but with a high penalty condition. Managing expectation of landlord is a significant challenge for ESCO. A partnership approach between TowerCO and ESCO was highly emphasised.
Kapil Kathpalia’s presentation was followed by a lively discussion on stakeholder management. The Mobile operators thought the expectation mentioned in the presentation was reasonable since the objective of the entire stakeholder was to reduce energy cost and turn greener. The tower companies thought they’re already in a partnership approach with ESCO.
GPM closed the session with a discussion on the difficulty to raise funds for green deployments. There was a big concern on whether or not the industry can manage the expectations since there is a significant economic-viability gap regarding green deployments, especially on OPEX model.