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Post date: Jul 6, 2010 7:04:05 PM
Cell phone base stations
As an ever increasing number of people around the world become connected by mobile communications networks, the challenges to providing electricity to these expanding networks are becoming greater as well.
In particular, developing countries are seeing unprecedented growth in wireless subscribers, however many of the base stations in these areas are in remote locales that have limited or no access to grid power.
Renewable energy from solar panels and small wind turbines offers a viable alternative to diesel generators in these remote off-grid sites, and a new report from Pike Research forecasts that renewable energy will power 4.5 percent of the world’s mobile base stations by 2014, up from just 0.11 percent in 2010.
In developing countries, the percentage will be even higher – the cleantech market intelligence firm forecasts that 8 percent of base stations in those regions will utilize renewable power by 2014.
“Energy is one of the top expense items for mobile network operators,” says managing director Clint Wheelock. “As solar and wind equipment become more cost-effective in the next few years, renewable energy will be an increasingly attractive option for base station power, in combination with batteries and fuel cells.”
Wheelock adds that the economics of renewable energy are already favorable in remote off-grid areas where the fully-loaded cost of delivering diesel to generators is high.
source: solarfeeds.com
Related:
It will soon announce plans to sell theequipment in Africa, expanding cell phone access to new ranks of rural villagers who live far from electricity supplies. This system will enable mobile phone service to be provided to 1.5 billion of the worlds rural poor. No electrical grid, no problem. In a few years, this could complete the penetration of the mobile to everyone and help alleviate poverty.
Over the past year, VNL, based in Haryana, India, has reengineered traditional cellular base stations to create one that only requires between 50 and 120 watts of power, supplied by a solar-charged battery. The components can be assembled and booted up by two people and mounted on a rooftop in six hours.
One such station--dubbed a "village station"--can handle hundreds of users. Groups of such village stations feed signals to a required larger VNL base station within five kilometers. In turn that larger station, which is also solar-powered, relays signals to the main network. The village station can turn a profit even if customers spend on average only $2 a month on the service, instead of the $6 required to make traditional systems cost-effective
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