Monday, September 02, 2013: With more than 6,00,000 telecom towers put up across the nation, there is a huge requirement for diesel that brings out the latest concerns from the DoT. Now the department is seeking out ways to reduce the costs and run the towers on renewable energy.
The restructuring will start from the non-grid areas. Presently, the telecom sector is the second largest consumer of diesel in the country after the railways. While this leads to high amounts of carbon emissions, the cost is also a big burden on the government’s exchequer.
Cheaper fuel is now pegged over Rs 45 billion. The DoT has now initiated the proposals to make use of renewable energy sources for powering the towers in 20 states. They will be using the energy generated from solar and wind facilities. The initial tests have proved successful and now the installations are to cover more regions.
Every year a single telecom tower consumes about 8,760 liters of diesel assuming that it is operated for 8 hours by diesel generator sets. Calculating, the estimated diesel consumption for powering all telecom towers in the country stands at 5.12 billion liters every year while the total carbon emission from these towers amounts somewhere close to 10 Mt.
The sources say that MNRE has been roped in to work for the developments along with BSNL. The idea is to experiment whether the new renewable models could be replicated. It is also necessary to know how capable these installations would be and the ways it would function.
