Two days back, I got an invitation to attend, Solar India 2011 in Mumbai. It’s really heartening to see positive developments in ‘renewable energy sector’ in India. Conferences like Solar India, which were earlier missing, now on regular radar of industry veterans. The industry itself is moving fast & could play critical role in shaping the future of telecom industry overall.
But I have some reserve opinion for Solar or what-so-ever you call as alternative industry solution to diesel or fossil fuel. First of all, National Solar Mission has come late. Though the agenda looks promising, it doesn’t address the key questions. Are telecom operators willing to shift focus only because there’s possibility of grid-connected solar power generation? It’s really viable to shift focus to Solar? What about CAPEX & low RoI for long years? Shifting focus from fossil to solar is just for sake of Solar or it’s just a trial-and-error approach? I’m keen to talk to telcos and really want to know, how feasible the solar alternative is, to power telecom towers.
India has approx 3, 10, 00o telecom towers, of which 70{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} reside in rural areas. According to TRAI, many of these towers are deficient of power. 40{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} of these towers are powered by grid-electricity & rest 60{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} by diesel generators. According to telecom industry experts, total diesel consumption for telecom equipments & cooling is 2 billion litres, which produces 5.3 million litres of GHG. Despite all these worries, the alternative energy sector is stil searching for concrete answers to find viable solution.
Probably, renewable energy sources for powering telecom towers may prove to be much viable in long term, but in short term, there’s no option to fossil fuels. And given the appetite of growth of Indian telecom sector, finding win-win solution is the key to drive growth. But somewhere we all have to start & take positive steps towards creating possible alternative to energy problems. Future beckons!
