There has been tremendous growth in the African telecoms story that quite frankly a lot of people did not see coming. Due to strong economic growth and fierce competition between telecom operators that keep prices relatively low, the African mobile market has only one way to go and that is up.
Now telecom companies needs base stations to support their network and that is where the problem lies. In developed countries the base stations are just connected to the power grid and that’s it. In Africa, most communities are without electricity so the telecom companies have to rely on generators running on diesel.
Most of Africa’s base stations are off grid (Photo by Pptudela)
In Nigeria for instance which has currently over 100 million subscribers and is expected to have 169 million subscribers by 2017, telecoms companies are running two diesel generators around the clock to power their base stations. There are currently over 15,000 base stations in the country and they use 25 million litres of diesel every month which is enough to fill 10 olympic sized swimming pools.
With most base stations located in residential areas, there are several health implications that arise from the use of generators. Diesel fumes are carcinogenic and the generators are pretty noisy and there is the issue of carbon emissions.
The average carbon emissions from a litre of diesel is 713 grammes and 25 millions litres will produce roughly 17,825 tonnes of carbon dioxide a month. That is equal to the emissions produced by 3,495 cars.
The scary thing is that telecoms companies need more base stations to provide better services with Nigeria alone requiring about 75,000 base stations to cater for a population of 160 million people. This practice is also carried out across Africa and will result in one thing; higher carbon emissions.
There is however a way to stop this and I don’t mean taking away people’s phones.
Several telecoms companies have been exploring the use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar but their intermittent nature makes it difficult for them to act as stand alone power sources. The solution been pushed by operators like Flexenclosure is a hybrid system which used a combination of both solar and wind with either a battery or generator to provide back up power.
There have also been several biofuel trials which have met with limited success due to the misconceptions that came with feedstocks like jatropha but biofuels could still be used power base stations in rural regions. There have also been advances in base station design making them more energy-efficient and able to able to keep their equipment cooler in the high temperatures.
In addition to reducing their carbon footprint, One other reason (and the cynical part of me will say the most important reason) why operators are starting to explore renewable energy is the cost savings that will come from switching from diesel which is often stolen from the base stations. Hybrid systems have higher CAPEX but lower OPEX and the payback period is usually within 2 to 3 years.
Africa is set to become the biggest phone market in the world and operators are slowly starting to adapt to the power constraints facing them in the continent which is set to have 1 billion subscribers by 2015. If the Africa is to be kept relatively carbon free then telecoms operators will have to fully embrace renewable energy.
