Current Power Scenario in the Telecom Industry
Figure 1:- Telecom Towers Grid SegmentationFigure
Figure 2:- Telecom Tower Unreliable Grid Connected Sites Segmentation (based on the number of hours when site is actually connected to the grid)
Figure 3:- Off Grid Telecom Tower Segmentation Based on Power Source in 2015
Wind Solar Hybrid system for Telecom Industry
Approximately from figure 2, we can see that 28 % of 500,000 towers are connected to grid for less 6 hours daily. Therefore, 140,000 towers are working on diesel for more than 14 hours daily. So there is critical need for alternative power solution.
From Figure 3, we can see that 79% (of 17% i.e. 0.79 * 0.17 * 500000 = 67,150) of Off grid telecom towers have DG+Battery Hybrid. Therefore, even if we want to introduce Wind turbines to those sites then we will only have to install the wind turbine on existing tower. We will not need separate batteries for the tower. Therefore, the switching cost from conventional DG to wind turbine is relatively smaller than expected.