Airtel made an announcement detailing the milestones the Mobile player has achieved towards building a ‘green’ environment friendly mobile network. The company aims to reduce the carbon footprint in Africa. Airtel intents to reduce by 50% the number of telecom sites runninf 24/7 on diesel, with a future aim of completely running without use of diesel on all sites by 2013. Airtel is moving more towards use of Hybrid Battery Banks which collect the excess energy produced by the diesel powered generator in a battery that powers the site once the generator in switched off.
This has helped reduce the use of diesel by up to 14 hours a day. Close to 60% of Airtel’s telecom sites in Africa are now powered using the Hybrid model resulting in major reduction in emissions and also operating costs for the company. The Company is targeting over 70% of all its sites to be powered by the Hybrid model by end of 2013. It added that is also working on the use of solar and wind power to power its telecom sites.
