Overview
Promoting green power to extend mobile beyond the grid
The Green Power for Mobile Programme
An estimated 1.6 billion people live without electricity. An additional 1 billion people live in areas with unreliable access to power. In order to expand into areas without regular electricity, mobile networks have primarily used diesel generators for power. However, as diesel prices rise and mobile network infrastructure is built in increasingly inaccessible regions, mobile operators need a viable alternative to diesel, such as solar and wind power.
The GSMA Green Power for Mobile programme has set the goal of helping the mobile industry use renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, or sustainable biofuels, to power 118,000 new and existing off-grid base stations in developing countries by 2012. Achieving that target would save up to 2.5 billion litres of diesel per annum and cut annual carbon emissions by up to 6.8 million tonnes.
Recent technological improvements and cost reductions in green power solutions have made this alternative more commercially attractive. Coupled with the environmental benefits of reduced diesel use and subsequent emissions, green power solutions provide a promising opportunity for operators.
The Green Power for Mobile (GPM) programme has been established to promote the use of green power to achieve two commercial objectives:
- The expansion of mobile networks into regions currently lacking coverage – to bring coverage to the unconnected
- The systematic reduction of reliance on diesel consumption by operators
GPM brings together a community of operators, vendors and financers to collaboratively catalyse the uptake of green power technology to accomplish these goals, through the following three interventions:
1. Market Clarification
The GSMA has executed a comprehensive survey and interview process of the GPM community (operators, vendors, green power suppliers and financers) to evaluate the overall market and technical landscape. The breadth of data and analysis will be made available to operators interested in exploring green power alternatives through a deep and easily accessible set of tools, methodologies and evaluation assets. Operators will be able to leverage the GPM portal suite to reduce green power learning curves and to support rapid assessment of green power alternatives through analysis of feasibility, financial viability and reliability.
2. Financing
Green power deployments in mobile networks have been limited primarily by the high cost of capital and payback periods exceeding two years. Currently the cost of equipping a BTS with green power, such as a wind turbine, is approximately 50% greater than deployment with diesel generators. Operators are reluctant to assume this high capital expense.
GPM is committed to long term commercially viable solutions. We are actively working with financing organisations to determine the availability of low cost capital to offset the high CAPEX costs. Financing information will be updated in the near future.
3. Innovation
The GPM programme aims to drive innovation within the green power industry particularly for small scale deployments suitable for telecoms infrastructure. The GSMA Development Fund has previously conducted trials of both biodiesel and solar/wind powered base stations and will continue to work with operators to trial emerging green power technologies.