TransAct Energy Corporation and Altergy Systems have entered into a US$ 10 million agreement which will give TransAct Energy the right to market and sell fuel cell technology made by Altergy Systems for powering and providing power backups for cellphone towers in India. The deal can also lead to TransAct setting up a manufacturing unit in India, thus giving it the advantage of a reduced cost of operations.
India is one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world adding more than 15 million users every month. And to provide almost 700 million mobile users unlimited and uninterrupted connectivity, India’s telecom companies use over 350,000 cellphone towers. These use 3-5 kW of power and are not connected to the grid. The cellphone towers are powered by diesel generators which use up to 2 billion litres (530 million gallons) of diesel every year. The Indian government plans to replace these diesel generators with solar panels to provide at least a part of the power required to run the towers. About 600 towers will go solar by October 2011 and the cost of solar power system installation on each tower would be about US$ 35,500.
