upload Renewable Energy Expands Mobile Services in Developing Markets

Reducing energy consumption might rank with all-IP networks as 2 of the biggest trends in telecom. A recent GSM Associa- tion report shows just how far the industry has come. Take Vodafone: By 2020, the carrier plans to halve its

carbon dioxide emissions from where they were in 2006. Vodafone is already saving 3,500 kWh annually by using fresh air instead of air conditioning to cool 40% of its base stations, the GSMA report said. Vodafone’s initiatives are noteworthy for another reason: It

has operations in several developing markets, where electrical infrastructure often is unreliable or unavailable. “Energy costs can be as high as 40% to 50% of an

operator’s total OpEx in regions where grid/reliable grid power is unavailable,” the GSMA report said. “By 2012, there will be 640,000 off-grid diesel base stations with a total diesel bill of $14.6 billion. Renewable energy and energy-efficient base stations reduces OpEx, improving profitability but also allowing operators to expand into more remote, lower ARPU areas.”

EVOLUTION OF THE SECTOR

Phase of GPM Market

Challenge That’s good news for consumers and businesses in South

Asia, which has the world’s largest off-grid population. China Mobile has the largest renewable energy deployment of any operator in the world. For example, in the mountainous Qinghai-Xizang Plateau region, 80% of China Mobile’s base stations use solar power. In India, Bharti-Infratel has spent the past year quadrupling

the number of cell sites powered by renewable energy to 2,000. That initiative will save $16 million annually and reduce carbon dioxide emissions 58,170 tons annually, according to the GSMA report. “The number of connections in Asia is expected to increase

by over a billion by 2014,” the GSMA report said. “To support this market expansion, hundreds of thousands of additional base stations will be deployed, and most of these will be in rural regions with poor grid electricity. The GSMA expects renewable energy, and in particular solar power, to become the default choice to power Asian off-grid networks by 2012.” 

GLOBAL MAINSTREAM: Renewable energy default choice over diesel

PRE- MARKET: Diesel generators are widespread, green base stations rare

PILOTING: Pilots complete (1-10 sites per country) mediocre understanding, poor skills and capacity, low priority

SCALED DEMONSTRATION: Scaled rollouts (10-1000 sites per country), broad understanding, developing skills & capacity, rising priority

TRANSFORMATION: 1000+ deployments or majority of off-grid sites, deep understanding, fully skilled, high priority

• Awareness of opportunity and business case

• Trust in technology and solution viability

Scale of Deployments Pre 2008 2008-2009 2009-2011

TELLABS INSIGHT Q2 4

2011-2013 2013+

• Financial barriers • Internal competency

• Scaling barriers

• Vendor selection - can handle the scale of the deployment

• Financial barriers • Organisational Impacts

• Procurement model

Source: GSM Association 2010

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