Indian operator Bharti Airtel has migrated 40,000 of its telecom towers across India to ‘green’ technology. Airtel's network transformation program dubbed ‘Project Leap’ is now focusing on a series of initiatives towards a greener environment and building sustainable network for the future. Under "Project Leap", Airtel has committed to reduce its carbon footprint emission by 70 percent by 2018.
Additionally, Airtel has adopted a range of innovative methods such as reducing power consumption by switching off unused capacity of its telecom towers during lean periods. It is also reducing power consumption and air wave emissions by optimizing signal transmission between the network and the device.
The operator also plans to largely adopt solar and new battery technologies and double its green telecom towers by 2020. The company has already installed roof top solar power capacity base of 770 KWp and plans to increase this capacity to 1 MWp in coming months and enhance renewable energy wheeling by solar/wind/hydro on core sites, to consume > 65 GWH/annum of green energy.
Airtel also reports it is “investing heavily” in radio technology that will help optimize both power and space. Of the total network installed base, 60 percent has been deployed on a zero footprint architecture with no air conditioning thereby reducing dependency on diesel. More than 40,000 towers of these Green Airtel telecom towers are designed to operate largely on battery-hybrid, lithium-ion and solar hybrid solutions with very little diesel consumption.
