Indus Towers plans to make investments worth Rs 5 billion in green initiatives in 2015-16. The telecom tower company claims to have invested an equal amount in green initiatives over the past two years.
The investment earmarked by Indus Towers? is in line with the company?s plans firmed up in 2010-11 to reduce its overall energy cost by 50 per cent over a period of five years through investments in green initiatives. Going forward, Rs 5 billion investment will encompass green initiatives such as the upgradation of technology and improving efficiencies of the equipment.
At present, Indus Towers has a total of 115,000 towers, out of which about 40,000 towers operate as diesel free sites and about 50,000 are operating without ACs. The tower company has installed pre-cooling units at its sites which uses ambient temperature and circulate air into the shelter to maintain the temperature. It is also promoting natural cooling units at the tower sites with self-rotating chimneys. Indus Towers is also keen on harnessing solar energy to power its sites and at present runs about 1,000 sites on solar energy.
Green initiatives have helped the tower company reduce energy costs by more than 40 per cent and diesel consumption by 37 per cent over the last four years. Going forward, Indus Towers is also exploring the option adopting other clean fuels such as bio-mass or fuel cells.
