The GSMA and Bharti Infratel Limited 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.
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.
Infratel has been the torchbearer in successfully pioneering green energy initiatives. Its award-winning GreenTowers P7 initiative has been running for almost two years and is a comprehensive, energy efficiency and alternate energy programme, aimed at reducing diesel usage and carbon emissions. The GreenTowers initiative is scoped to cover 70% of Infratel’s 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 liters per year.