E-Plus goes green with off-grid base station

BANGALORE, INDIA: German mobile service provider E-Plus on Friday said that it has opened an eco-friendly base station in Germany that works on solar and wind power, supported by fuel cell and deep cycle battery technology.

The operation of the site, built by Nokia Siemens Networks, does not use electric power and thus allows E-Plus to reduce its carbon footprint, said a press release.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ remote energy management enables the monitoring of all green energy components at anytime, the release added.

"With this innovative energy concept, we show how mobile phone transmission sites can become carbon neutral," said Rafal Markiewicz, chief technology officer of E-Plus Group. "For us, building the first green base station site of this type is an important achievement."

“It’s great to see that E-Plus will achieve energy efficiency and zero CO2 emission during this site’s operation,” added Stefan Ilchmann, responsible for E-Plus business at Nokia Siemens Networks.

How it works

Nokia Siemens Networks has provided a solar tracking system, which follows the sun and turns the maximum surface of the solar panels toward it, to increase solar energy production for the site operation.

Its Green Energy Controller manages the solar energy, a wind turbine, a fuel cell system and the deep cycle battery technology, which is mounted in SiteStar cabinets - a system which uses lesser energy to work - for extended life time.

It has also extended its network management platform, NetAct, for network monitoring and optimization to enable energy management of this site.

This platform also enables the operator to remotely maintain and install new software remotely, which obviates the necessity of visiting base station sites, thereby further preventing CO2 emissions.

Green site operation and remote energy management help E-Plus achieve zero CO2 emissions during the operation, supporting its target to increase energy efficiency by five per cent by the year 2012, and by 20 per cent by the year 2020.

Electricity grid independent base station can be used at locations lacking an affordable energy grid connection to cover ‘white spot’ areas and increase the broadband penetration.