The increasing emission of green house gases (GHG) is a legitimate concern as it threatens the health and quality of life of citizens across the world. It is difficult to justify use of harmful fuels when cleaner and affordable options exist or, if the use of such fuel is for non-essential purposes such as e.g., air-conditioning and lighting at a late-night party or power for an advertising billboard. On the other hand, it is clear that services like trains, telephone, hospitals, movement of food, security etc. are absolutely essential and must be available 24×7 without interruption or deterioration of quality.
As serious players in the telecommunications sector and as responsible citizens, we recognise the need for steps to reduce this carbon footprint. Such steps, however, must recognise the concern for telecommunications that touch virtually all aspects of the economy and citizens.
India?s telecom operators provide excellent mobile services at some of the lowest prices in the world and earn the lowest revenues per user. They are agents of development and hardly the ruthless commercial players pursuing profits at the cost of the environment, as is being positioned by vested interests.
Nationally, electricity grid currently meets barely 33 per cent of Telecom Infrastructure energy needs and therefore, they are forced to address the deficit by other energy sources available to them. Majority of off-grid energy sources in use today are non-renewable and polluting.
Diesel use and telecom Mobile Infrastructure
The attempts to restrict or penalise telecom towers because they use large amounts of diesel miss the important point that this use is for a critical infrastructure and service. It is frequently forgotten that mobile infrastructure companies use diesel as an option of last resort – Diesel is an expensive fuel, with high costs for movement as well as storage, that brings with it issues of safety and misuse. Besides the obvious concern for pollution, it would make eminent commercial sense for companies to use a cleaner or safer alternative if it existed. The experience with thousands of standalone solar solutions deployments confirms that the assumptions about the life cycle of solar PV systems and batteries are overly optimistic. The extremely high upfront costs and the accompanying technology risk have deterred roll-outs on a large scale.
The recent All India Study conducted by M/s Nielsen (India) Pvt. Ltd. for ?Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell? (PPAC) of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has re-affirmed the fact that Telecom Infrastructure Providers are only the miniscule users of Diesel compared to other sectors like ?Transportation?, Railways, Agriculture, etc. As per the report, 70 per cent of diesel and 99.6 per cent petrol is consumed in the transport sector alone whereas Mobile Towers consumes only 1.54 per cent of the total diesel consumption.
Key concern areas
i. Telecom Infra Companies use diesel as an option of last resort
ii. Telecom Companies cannot meet their License Obligations/ Quality of Service
iii. It is untenable to single out Telecom Infra Companies as threats to environment
iv. Telecom Infra Companies provide connectivity that mitigates other infrastructure gaps
v. Telecom Infra Companies deserve higher priority than several currently authorized users of Generators e.g. hotels, Group Housing Societies, etc
vi. Telecom Infra Companies prefer rechargeable batteries to Generators
vii. Telecom Infra Companies comply with existing regulation relating to emissions
Telecom Infra Companies recognise that renewable energy is important for their long term success. They have worked closely and constructively with MNRE to facilitate movement to cleaner power including solar, wind and other sources. They are participating in several efforts to improve the viability of renewable energy. Their position paper supports MNRE’s endeavors to see Renewable Energy Service Companies (RESCOs) have viable model. The Mobile Infrastructure Companies are willing to be Anchor clients for RESCOs distributed model.
Therefore, any intervention in the telecom sector requires careful analysis of costs and benefits. In addition, such steps must also be effective and sustainable.
Green Telecom directives
The DOT guidelines issued vide its letter dated 23rd January 2012 mandates the Telecom Service Providers, whereby it was required that :-
a. At least 50 per cent of all rural towers and 20 per cent of the urban towers are to be powered by hybrid power (Renewable Energy Technologies (RET) + Grid power) by 2015.
b. Further 75 per cent of rural towers and 33 per cent of urban towers are to be powered by hybrid power by 2020.
Experience with RET of Telecom Industry
Key observations from above RET installations are:
RET installations installed at only Ground based telecom towers, predominantly in rural areas
Space for solar installation not available at majority sites (as per BSNL experience on 100+ sites pilot, space not available at 80 per cent sites
RET installations are widely scattered due to Telecom towers being distributed and further very less sites are feasible
Periodic PV panel cleaning is a challenge due to non-availability of water at site, adversely effecting solar output.
This results in considerable maintenance expenses to maintain Solar set up.
Output from solar set ups at telecom towers are considerably low, as compared to MW scale solar power plants:
S. No. Sector Average Solar Power Generation, kWH/kWp/day 1 Telecom sites 3.5 2 Grid connected MW scale plants 4.5-4.8
This clearly indicates 30 per cent of incremental capex per MW as against conventional MW scale solar farms.
Without considering the technical and operational challenges, the capital investment required for these many installations alone stands out to be gigantic Rs 660 billion by 2020 to meet the targets.
The said target is clearly unachievable as it amounts to 100+ RET deployment per day, every day till 2015. For the period 2012 to 2015 this amounts to the following: –
i) Total number of towers 440,000
ii) 70 per cent in rural areas 308,000, 50 per cent of this is 154000
iii) 30 per cent in urban areas 132,000, 20 per cent of this is 26400
iv) Total towers to be powered by hybrid power (Renewable Energy Technologies (RET) + Grid power) by 2015 is 154,000+26400 = 180,400
v) Time available for achieving target from 2012 Feb (11 months) to Jan 2013 – Dec 2015 (36 months) = 47 months
vi) Monthly target to be met 180400/47 = 3838 towers per month.
Financial Impact
? 3 Lakh Towers powered by RET by 2020 (~3 GW)
? This is Twenty three times the current installed off-grid / captive solar power in India
? Current off grid / captive solar (>1 KW) installed capacity is 0.13 GW (as on 30.6.2013)
? Double the current installed solar power in India
? Current solar installed capacity is app. 1.5 GW
? 1.5 times country?s off-grid solar application target for 2022
? 2 GW is cumulative off-grid solar application target under JNNSM (2010 – 2022)
? 15 per cent of MNRE?s target of grid interactive RET power for 2011-17
? MNRE target for Grid RET = 21.7 GW
? Monthly run rate to achieve target of 2 Lakh towers powered by RET by 2015 (~2 GW) (in 33 months, April 2013 to December 2015)
? ? 6000 RET installations (60 MW) per month
? 1200 Cr per month
Challenges in meeting Green Telecom directives
Despite significant challenges, various RET options have been tried by the industry at multiple locations with telecom operators having installed Solar solutions at almost 4000 locations. Having considered other options as well, no other RET could get scaled up. Further, it has been experienced that even in case of solar deployments; there are serious technical and practical challenges at the eligible telecom tower sites as stated below:
i) A major constraint is the availability of minimal essential area to place the solar panels – due to which Roof Top Towers (RTP) sites have to be ruled out for eligibility for solar installations.
ii) Solar solutions due to very limited power output (about 15 per cent of installed capacity) are hardly capable to power outdoor, non-shared /very low load shared GBT sites.
iii) In our opinion, the goal is to reduce dependence on diesel and the distinction between Rural and Urban is unhelpful. Therefore, in urban areas we should be limiting ourselves to batteries as a clean source of energy.
iv) We do not have enough number of Vendors and solutions in Solar and Bio-mass ? two technologies available and being implemented currently to deploy as-many number as envisaged in DOT notification.
v) Further, due to space and other techno-economic constraints, the typical capacity of a Solar Power System is about two to three KW, which is suitable only for the sites with single tenancy. Hence, these sites would not be capable of being shared with other operators.
Industry has already requested DoT to re-look at these targets taking technical feasibility into account.
Industry initiatives ? reduction of carbon footprint
Some of the key initiatives taken by telecom infrastructure companies to reduce diesel usage along with reduction in overall energy consumption thereby reducing carbon footprint are listed below. It is pertinent to mention that all such efforts have been undertaken not because of any guidelines by the government but as a measure of our intent towards a cleaner society.
While building new sites the industry is focusing on Outdoor site (by doing this, Air-conditioners are eliminated reducing the DG/Diesel consumption)
The batteries are drained up to the maximum extent possible. Though this reduces battery life but also considerably reduces DG/Diesel usage at sites.
inbuilt with Aircons sites which uses ambient air for cooling to cool the shelter.
New sites are also being put with Inverters to delay/minimize DG run to operate Aircons on battery during the power cut.
We are doing trials on Fast charging batteries/ other new technology batteries which can handle intermittent power cuts & gives backup. Please note that these are quite costly batteries as compared to current VRLA batteries but helps in reducing DG/Diesel usage.
Additionally, we must highlight that due to the increase in tenancy ratio, the DG/ Diesel consumption has considerably reduced. This has been possible only through the innovative concept of ?Sharing of Towers?. Some of the key benefits of Tower sharing are :
Moreover, we would like to highlight that towers are already operational on Renewable Energy technology (Hybrid model) at various telecom tower sites presently and the industry is keen to scale up the deployment of Green technologies in the near future.
As a concerted effort to try and comply with the DoT directive, the industry floated the RESCO RFP, to attract RET companies and related experts to collaborate with the telecom industry for faster and practical implementation. More than 70 RESCOs were interacted with, and finally 2 RESCOs (CMES Pune and Mahindra & Mahindra) were engaged for potential deployment of RETs at 1100 sites. This also exhibited very slow progress in implementation on ground due to challenge with regard to scalability and unviable business model.
TAIPA has also submitted a White Paper on Green Telecom to Hon?ble Minister of New and Renewable Energy, Dr. Farooq Abdullah.
DoT constituted a committee and collated the data / experience of RET installations in telecom across the country. The Committee has decided the following:
a)To engage with Planning Commission, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, etc.
b)To prepare Detailed Project Report (DPR) to develop the accelerated road map of RET deployment in Telecom sector by a third party Consultant to evaluate suitable technology and required VGF quantum & soft funding from various sources.
The report of the independent third party consultant is expected soon.
