Scared Japan to Mine Rare Earth Minerals in Kazakhstan,Vietnam and Surrounding Seas
October 5, 2010Guest Post : Indian Shopping Mall Owners have Little Bargaining Power in an Oligopsonic Market
October 5, 2010The Government of India has formed a high powered panel to look into replacing the usage of diesel powered gensets by Renewable Energy in Telecom Towers.India has around 300,000 Telecom Towers most of which are powered by expensive diesel generators.The reason is that a lot of the telecom towers are situated in far flung areas where the grid does not exist.Also the power supply in India is erratic and not reliable with 10 hour electricity blackouts not an infrequent occurrence.In these cases a backup supply of electricity supply is badly needed.Diesel Generators are the most popular form with Diesel heavily subsidized by the government in comparison to normal petroleum.Also Diesel Generators are widely available without huge capital costs.
However these Diesel Generators are much more expensive than normal electricity and cause a huge amount of pollution.The government estimates a $1.5 billion annual spend on fossil fuel by telecom towers with 5 million tons of Carbon Dioxide Emission.Replacing these polluting forms of expensive dirty energy with Green Energy is a great forward looking proactive step.Note some of the telecom towers are already using some form of Renewable Energy.Making it mandatory for all towers to use Green Energy would give the much needed policy boost to Green Telecom in India.
Renewable Energy For Telecom Towers: Panel Formed – RTT
The Union Government has set up a five-member committee, headed by Ajay Bhattacharya of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) of the Telecom Ministry, to explore ways to promote renewable energy for powering telecom towers, say media reports. Every year, the country’s three-lakh telecom towers utilize fuel worth over Rs.6,400 crore. The government is planning to use renewable energy, particularly solar energy, to reduce the cost of fuel and to dispense with hazardous carbon emissions. The committee will submit its report in three months.
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[…] uneconomical except in special cases like off grid applications.Replacing expensive Diesel powered Telecom Towers with Solar Panels is also an option.Sharply falling Solar Panel costs should make it competitive […]
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[…] Ballard Power Systems (BLDP) is a producer of proton exchange membranes (PEM) hydrogen fuel cells which it sells to telecom towers, forklifts and bus companies. The company has been listed since 1995 on the USA stock exchange. The company saw its stock price soar, after its listing as fuel cells for the automotive market became a big investing theme. However, fuel cell technology failed to meet its promise as it proved to be uneconomical. Ballard also gave up on the automotive market by selling its automotive business to Daimler in 2007. The company now sells fuel cells to Plug Power (PLUG) as well as bus companies and forklift operators. BLDP is also focusing on selling its fuel cell backup solutions to telecom tower companies. Telecom towers are frequently located in remote places without access to the power grid. As most towers are run using expensive diesel gensets, telecom tower […]