Digital Design Blog

Green Mobile Base Stations and the Economics of Renewable Energy

There’s an interesting article by Jack Ewing in BusinessWeek that talks about how companies like Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens are embracing renewable energy in Asia and Africa in order to supply rural areas with mobile services. According to Ewing, growth in the mobile industry will be heavily contingent upon the use of alternative energy technology in order to power base stations that are off the main power grids in developing countries.

While the global number of mobile subscribers is expected to grow by over 2 billion within the next ten years, the majority of that growth is expected to happen in developing nations. Wind, sun, and bio-fuel methods are being employed as a substitute for diesel fuel, which currently powers most off-grid generators in rural areas within Asia and Africa. Fuel expenses account for more than half of operating expenses for base stations, and getting the fuel to remote substations can often be difficult due to poor infrastructure.

“Thanks to advances in technology, it’s becoming more practical to run base stations with renewable energy. For example, it takes only one-fourth as many solar cells to power a base station as it did five years ago, according to a recent Ericsson study. Equipment producers also have put more effort into reducing the amount of power that a base station needs in the first place. In India, Ericsson buries the batteries for a base station 20 feet underground, reducing the need for energy-gulping cooling equipment (and also reducing the risk of theft)…The goal is for base stations to generate their own juice. In the Indian state of Maharashtra, mobile-services provider Idea Cellular, working in conjunction with Ericsson and the GSM Assn., is running four base stations with a mix of diesel and locally produced biofuel. Currently the fuel is refined from waste cooking oil, but in a few years the biofuel may come from jatropha, a hardy oil-producing shrub grown by local farmers.”

Here’s a link to the article in BusinessWeek Online. Via Textually, E-commerce Times