The Indian telecom industry has grown at an unprecedented rate over the past few years. As of January 2013, the country’s subscriber base stood at 895 million. This growth has been supported through a robust telecom backbone comprising over 400,000 towers. The surge in demand for telecom services has increased the sector’s energy requirements, making it one of the largest consumers of diesel and consequently, one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions in the country. According to a Greenpeace report, the Indian telecom sector is responsible for 5.2 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually, which represents over 2 per cent of the country’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The telecom industry consumes about 2 billion litres of diesel every year, and this is likely to increase significantly to 6 billion litres by 2020, given the increasing teledensity in rural areas. Diesel continues to be the primary fuel in the rural areas, which suffer from inadequate power availability and poor grid connectivity.

However, diesel is a costly option, both financially and in terms of its environmental impact. It is, therefore, important for the industry to focus on managing its energy needs and reducing its carbon footprint. To this end, the telecom industry has started deploying green solutions to power its network operations. The green concept is steadily becoming an important part of operators’ future strategies.

The government too is encouraging the telecom industry to switch to renewable energy sources. Under the green telecom guidelines, operators and tower companies are required to power at least 50 per cent of the rural towers and 20 per cent of the urban towers through hybrid power (renewable energy technologies and grid power) by 2015. These targets have been increased to 75 per cent for rural towers and 33 per cent for urban towers by 2020. Further, the mandate requires service providers to adopt a voluntary code of practice encompassing energy efficient network planning, infrastructure sharing, deployment of energy efficient technologies and adoption of renewable energy technologies to reduce the carbon footprint. In 2011, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) launched a programme to power 400 telecom towers with solar panels under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, which provided a 30 per cent subsidy on capital costs. However, it received a lukewarm response from the industry given the small coverage of the programme. The Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund was another key initiative under which subsidy was provided for the use of solar energy for digital satellite phone terminals and new village public telephones (VPTs). In addition, the USO Fund, in collaboration with the MNRE, has been providing subsidies for setting up solar chargers at 50,000 VPTs. It also provided a similar subsidy for setting up solar mobile charging stations in 5,000 villages under The Energy and Resources Institute’s “Lighting a Billion Lives” project.

Another key development was the setting up of renewable energy service companies (rescos) to manage the industry’s energy needs through economical and scalable solutions. The rescos are expected to design, deploy and manage optimal renewable energy solutions to help telecom tower companies to overcome the energy management challenge. The Tower and Infra-

structure Providers Association has been promoting the resco model and had invited proposals from vendors and private renewable energy developers to generate and supply off-grid power to telecom towers in the country. Of the 25 rescos that have expressed interest, Creative Mark Engineering Solutions and Mahindra & Mahindra have been selected by private telecom tower companies for supplying renewable energy. The rescos will set up renewable energy-based plants near the telecom towers and sell power to the telecom company at a predetermined cost on a pay-per-use basis. The additional power generated by these can be sold to commercial users living in areas where these plants are located.

Green energy options

Renewable energy solutions such as solar photovoltaic (PV), wind, biomass and fuel cells are being considered to run and support operations at various tower sites. These have been used with diesel generators, both as stand-alone and hybrid solutions, to reduce carbon emissions at sites. So far, solar has emerged as the most preferred renewable technology primarily on account of abundantly available sunlight across the country. Besides, it is the most mature technology amongst its renewable counterparts and has been deployed on a large scale for generating power. However, due to limited sunshine hours, solar PV solutions are generally used along with a battery bank at telecom sites. Further, a solar PV project involves large capex but the maintenance and operational costs for the same are negligible. Moreover, if entities avail of subsidies and soft loans offered by the government, the payback period can be reduced to three to four years.

Other alternatives that are also being adopted to meet the energy requirements at tower sites include wind turbines and biofuels. Wind turbines, like solar solutions, cannot be deployed as stand-alone systems for running telecom towers since the viability of this technology largely depends on the wind speed and quality. Companies are also undertaking research and development activities for producing biofuels from agricultural waste to power existing diesel generator sets. However, supply chain management is a major challenge for biomass generation. Further, the storage and maintenance of biomass required for a gasifier is also a key issue.

Another significant green energy technology, though relatively new in the Indian telecom market, is fuel cells. These transform the chemical energy of a fuel (usually hydrogen, methanol, hydrocarbons) directly into electrical energy. The most common forms of fuel cells used for telecom towers are based on a proton exchange membrane, solid oxide and molten carbon. Fuel cells have several benefits over traditional renewable technologies. These can run continuously and hence make a good stand-alone solution that can replace diesel generators. The cells have higher efficiency than other renewable solutions and an increase in tenancies at a given site can be accommodated by adding multiple cells. Currently, fuel cell deployment has been undertaken on a trial basis in India as inadequate hydrogen production, safety and storage issues as well as high fuel prices are key deterrents. Further, unlike other renewable technologies, there is hardly any government incentive for encouraging the adoption of fuel cells in India.

As for traditional renewable energy technologies, the government offers several incentives that have facilitated the adoption of these solutions. For instance, in order to support off-grid solar PV applications in telecom towers, the MNRE provides a capital subsidy of 30 per cent while for the wind sector it allows 100 per cent foreign direct investment and excise duty exemption. Further, several concessions in customs duty on the import of machinery and components, exemption in excise duty, accelerated depreciation on major components, relief from taxes and capital subsidy for setting up biomass projects are also being provided. Moreover, the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency also offers soft loans at a 5 per cent interest rate for renewable energy projects.

Industry initiatives

Over the years, several operators and tower companies have deployed green energy solutions in their operations. Bharti Infratel has been a pioneer in the adoption of green technologies and its Green Towers P7 programme is a key

initiative in this regard. It is a comprehensive energy efficiency and alterna-tive-energy programme entailing seven high-impact initiatives that are aimed at reducing its carbon footprint through optimised diesel usage. Under the programme, Bharti Infratel has powered over 1,350 towers with solar energy and plans to add another 3,000 towers in the next two years. Further, 10,500 sites have been converted to alternative backup power. The overall scope of the programme involves deploying clean energy solutions at 22,000 tower sites (primarily in rural areas with low or no grid power availability). The initiative will reduce annual diesel consumption by 66 million litres and save carbon emissions of about 150,000 tonnes per year.

Indus Towers also plans to invest Rs 1.65 billion to make 20,000 of its sites (comprising 20 per cent of its network) diesel-free by mid-2013. Around 9,000 of the company’s towers operate without diesel, of which around 1,000 are powered by solar energy. Meanwhile, Viom Networks and GTL Infrastructure are also looking to deploy solar and wind solutions at their tower sites.

Aside from these initiatives, companies like Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel have partnered with global vendors and the GSM Association to deploy alternative energy solutions at their tower sites. As a part of a pilot project, Idea has used biofuels to power mobile base stations in Latur, Maharashtra. In February 2012, it collaborated with Delta Power Solutions to deploy fuel cells at 30 telecom tower sites in Madhya Pradesh. The company is experimenting with hybrid solar solutions.

Bharti Airtel has established a 100 kW non-penetrating rooftop solar power plant in Gangaganj, Lucknow, through a 30 per cent subsidy from the MNRE. The plant is expected to save around 26,000 litres of diesel annually. The operator plans to establish similar plants in six other locations, generating close to 300 kWp of solar energy.  The launch of Airtel’s green data centre in Mumbai in 2012 marked another major step. The data centre has been designed to achieve 1.7-1.75 power usage effectiveness, making it one of the most energy efficient facilities in India. Airtel is also deploying around 250 sites using biomass-based power. Moreover, the operator has floated a request for proposal for deploying 3,000 solar PV sites.

As part of its sustainability initiatives, Vodafone India has introduced several mechanisms to measure and report carbon emissions. These initiatives helped reduce diesel consumption by 10 per cent and  GHG emissions by 850,000 tonnes in 2011-12. The company plans to deploy 150 hybrid solar PV sites in addition to the 390 sites that have already been deployed.

Reliance Communications is another operator that has deployed biofuel plants to run its rural telecom networks in several areas. It has installed windmills on its towers at Kunustara and Murugathal in West Bengal. It is exploring the feasibility of using solar energy in areas where grid connectivity is not available.

Besides powering tower operations, green energy solutions are being increasingly adopted in backhaul systems as well as in VSATs. For instance, Tata Teleservices Limited has installed solar power systems at around 2,000 VSAT sites. Airtel has also started deploying solar PV systems at microwave points in select circles.

With the scaling up of these initiatives, the impact will be visible in the form of lower operating costs and reduced carbon emission levels. The government’s mandate to run telecom towers partly on green energy will further encourage the adoption of green initiatives by companies.

The way forward

The need to reduce energy costs and minimise the environmental impact of telecom operations has brought the concept of green telecom to the forefront. While the industry has started responding positively to the concept of green telecom, a lot needs to be done to ensure eco-friendly operations. The high deployment costs and long payback periods are key reasons for the slow adoption of green solutions. However, these are short-term challenges and green technologies are expected to take off once they are deployed commercially, with adequate support and incentives from the government.

According to a Greenpeace report, effective implementation of the green telecom directive will ensure annual energy savings of around Rs 24.3 billion for the Indian telecom industry. The new set of rules will also create tremendous opportunity for green solution vendors and will result in an increased number of sites being powered by renewable solutions. Further, rescos will go a long way in helping the telecom industry to transition to renewable energy solutions.