Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) has awarded a contract to Ballard Power Systems for supply of 100 units of ElectraGen-ME fuel cell backup power systems to be deployed in its telecom network in India. This comes after the company successfully completed an extensive 12-month trial of fuel cell systems from various vendors.

The shipment of these initial 100 systems is expected to be completed in 2015. According to Ballard, its ElectraGen-ME fuel cell system is a reliable and cost-effective backup power solution for telecom base station sites. Recently, RJIL had also placed a $7.5 million order with Paris-based Saft for Evolion lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery systems to support the next phase of its 4G/LTE network roll-out.