TAIPA Conducts ‘Green Energy Conclave' on Developing Sustainable Telecom Ecosystem

Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA) industry association for leading telecommunication infrastructure providers such as Bharti Infratel, Indus Towers, ATC Towers, GTL Infrastructure, Reliance Infratel, Tower vision, Space Tele Infra, Sterlite Technologies, Applied Solar and Coslight India, concluded its ‘Green Energy Conclave’ themed on Developing Sustainable Telecom Eco System: Being future ready”.

The event deliberated on the burgeoning energy requirements and synergising the infrastructure requirements for emerging technologies such as 5G, IoT, M2M, AR and VR etc. Telecom industry is committed towards developing green sustainable telecommunication ecosystem has already deployed around 1.15 lakh diesel free sites by using innovative energy efficient solutions like Li-ion batteries, advanced VRLA batteries, and other innovative solutions such as Diesel Free sites, outdoor sites, free cooling units etc.

At present, telecommunication sector is the major growth driver for Li-on energy storage solutions. Currently, the energy storage solutions contribute upto 5GWh towards power consumption by the Telecom sector and is expected to grow upto 25GWh by 2022. The technological innovations in the energy storage domain is one of the highlights which will help reach this goal even earlier.

The event witnessed eminent presence of Dr. R S Sharma, Chairman, TRAI, Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, DoT and Chairperson, Telecom Commission, G K Gupta, Joint Secretary, MNRE with other senior Government officials like Anshu Prakash, Additional Secretary, DoT, Amit Yadav, Joint Secretary (T), DoT, S.K. Gupta, Secretary-TRAI, U.K. Srivastava, Principal Advisor, TRAI, Archana Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, MNRE, R.M. Chaturverdi, DDG, DoT and representatives of leading alternate energy solution providers such as Cos Light, Powerol by Mahindra, Panasonic, OMC Power, OKAYA Power, telecom equipment manufacturers such as Ericsson and Huawei, telecom service providers and telecom infrastructure providers i.e. Bharti Airtel, RailTel, Bharti Infratel, etc.

Leading analytics and research company, CRISIL has collaborated with TAIPA as the knowledge partner providing much insights into the Green Energy technology solutions for telecom sector for this knowledge sharing conclave.

At the event, Tilak Raj Dua, Director General, TAIPA ‘In the near future, with emerging technologies such as 5G and flagship programmes such as Smart Cities, Digital India and Financial inclusion etc., India is poised to witness the multi-fold data growth and will leapfrog towards advanced Digital era. To match the data demand, a robust telecom infrastructure needs to be developed and will have to remain operational through an uninterrupted power supply. Telecom infrastructure Industry is committed to develop a sustainable telecommunication ecosystem having minimum impact on the environment ensuring environment safety by using efficient energy solutions such as Li-ion batteries, Simple power panels, fuel cells, solar cooling units and FCUs etc. Today, more than 1 lakh 15 thousand towers sites have already been converted as diesel free sites by the telecom infrastructure industry and many more such initiatives are expected soon.”

In India power supply and grid connectivity in many parts of the country has improved in the last few years. In absence of uninterrupted quality power supply, the telecom industry is forced to look upon other viable alternate sources of energy such as DG sets and energy storage solutions. Though as per the 2014 study conducted by PPAC Nielsen, mobile towers diesel consumption is only 1.77% out of the total 12 identified sectors such as agriculture, transportation and manufacturing sector etc.

In order to contribute towards the environment and further reduce its dependence on diesel, the industry have started using innovative efficient energy storage solutions such as Li-ion batteries, advanced VRLA batteries, and other innovative solutions such as Diesel Free sites, outdoor sites, free cooling units etc. Further, energy storage solutions such as Li-ion batteries have many features such as high efficiency, fast charging cycles, no toxic fumes released in the atmosphere, etc.

At the event, the panellist discussed on the range of significant topics such as sustainability of telecommunication with technology evolution of 5G, sustainable growth for smart cities with telecom as core infrastructure and 5G evolution and smart cities.

In the last two decades, Telecommunication has emerged as a key driver of economic and social development in an increasingly knowledge intensive global scenarios. The Indian telecommunication sector has undergone a revolutionary transition in the last two decades to become the World’s second largest telecommunication market with more than 1.2 billion subscribers connected through 5 lakh mobile towers with more than 20 lakh BTSs. As per the government report, the mobile sector’s contribution to GDP which is presently 6.5 percent and will increase to 8.2 percent by 2020.