Bharti, GSMA Plan Green Telecom Towers in India

RMN Digital | March 28, 2012 | Asia Pacific, Corporate, Regions, Strategy | No Comments

The GSMA and Bharti Infratel Limited have announced that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop and promote green technologies for telecom tower infrastructure in India.

The collaboration will entail working together to convert 1,000 Infratel towers into green sites, which will reduce greenhouse gas carbon emissions by almost 11,000 tonnes as a result of the reduced usage of diesel. GSMA made this announcement today, March 28.

Bharti Infratel is one of the world’s leading telecom tower infrastructure providers, owning over 33,000 of India’s estimated 400,000 towers. Having predominantly a rural footprint, they have nearly 9,000 off-grid towers, which accounts for 18 per cent of total off-grid towers in India.

Infratel has already converted over 10,500 sites to alternative back-up power, out of which almost 1,350 sites are now on solar hybrid; converting an additional 1,000 is the first step of engagement with the GSMA.

More India Stories:

Infratel’s GreenTowers initiative is scoped to cover 70 per cent of its tower network. It includes seven high-impact initiatives that are focused on reducing CO2 emission by 154,000 tonnes per year by reducing diesel consumption by 58.17 million litres per year.

“This vital partnership is a step further in our endeavour of fore-fronting green within the telecom tower infrastructure industry and will enhance the capacity of Infratel’s GreenTowers P7 initiative,” said Sairam Prasad, chief technical officer, Bharti Infratel.

Infratel has a vast footprint of over 33,000+ towers and holds a 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers Limited – a joint venture of Bharti Infratel, Vodafone & Idea Cellular.

“This partnership will have significant impact in reducing operating expenditure by 10-20 per cent at each individual site, as well as a significant reduction in carbon emissions,” said Chris Locke, managing director, GSMA Development Fund.

The GSMA’s Green Power for Mobile programme, supported by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), works to promote and institutionalise green power in a number of markets including India.

Spanning more than 220 countries, the GSMA is an industry association with nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators.

Photo courtesy: Bharti Infratel