It what appears to be somewhat shocking statistics, Greenpeace yesterday released its latest findings on Indian Telecom Sector’s Carbon Footprint, named “Dirty Talking- A Case of Telecom to shift from diesel to renewable”.
According to Greenpeace, a subsidy of Rs 7 to 10, on diesel prices has well being exploited by telecom operators, which has resulted into loss of INR 2600 Cr, to state exchequer. However, Greenpeace suggests that telecom sector can transform itself from highest carbon footprint generator to least by adopting renewable energy sources to run its Base Trans-receiver Stations, widely deployed to provide cellular network, commonly known as ‘mobile towers’.
But despite visible benefits, telecom sector is still reluctant to shift from diesel to renewable energy is substantive way, which may also cause further losses to sector in terms of OPEX cost.
The key findings of the report can be summarized as:
- The telecom sector in India emitted over 5.6m tonnes of CO2 in 2008 on as a result of diesel use. Emissions have since risen, and are likely to increase significantly with the sector’s predicted exponential growth over the next few years.
- A shift in power sourcing to renewable technologies, such as solar photovoltaic, will result in a close to 300 per cent reduction in total costs (CAPEX + OPEX) for telecom operators, in comparison to a diesel generator (DG) based tower over ten years.
- Failure of the industry in disclosing its carbon emissions and committing to reduction of emissions in a public and transparent manner on a consistent basis. Major telecom companies within the sector are particularly guilty of this.
- Similarly, telecom operators have yet to shift the sourcing of their power requirements to renewable sources at scales of significance. The investment required to power the entire network towers in the country by renewable is approximately Rs 151000 crore, which is more economically feasible than diesel based network towers in the longer run.
Greenpeace is also asking telecom operators in India to publicly disclose their annual carbon emission and shift towards replacing diesel by renewable sources, by powering 50{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} of their mobile towers through renewal sources by 2015.
Although initiative by Greenpeace is laudable, reluctance from telecom operator comes mainly from high CAPEX requirement for setting up renewable solutions with low RoIs. Also, it’s widely known that despite visible results, a successful business case of ‘Renewables for mobile towers’ is yet to be realized, taking off much of the lucrative aspects of deploying renewable sources.
