Vikram Solar Plans Major Thrust towards Solarization of Telecom Towers

This PR talks about the various steps that Vikram Solar takes with the help of the Government of India to Solarize the telecom towers. It also discusses the future prospects of Green Telecom in India. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) May 06, 2011 - Kolkata - Vikram Solar Private Limited, one of the premier companies in India for the promotion of renewable energy and its implementation, has decided for a major initiative towards solarization of telecom towers.

Vikram Solar manufactures a wide range of Solar modules made with high efficiency multi / mono crystalline solar cells for both commercial and domestic use. The company also undertakes EPC contracts for private/government sectors on large and complex Solar PV Power projects. It has its own PV manufacturing facility and in house System Designing at its factory in Falta, West Bengal. In-house manufacturing of PV modules helps the company to keep control over the cost and quality.

India is presently one of the largest telecom markets in the world, second only to China, with 250,000 mobile phone towers serving over 670 million subscribers. The fact that power and fuel expenditures account for 35% of the operating cost of each mobile phone tower, and one can easily deduce that solar PV and telecom should develop a more symbiotic working relationship. Such a relationship would result in a better overall telecom business model, especially since both factors (PV and telecom) are key elements in India's future growth and role as a global innovator.

Taking a conservative approach, the total number of telecom towers in India (presently stands at 250,000) consumes 530 million gallons of diesels every month. The Carbon emissions from diesel would be 22.2 pounds/gallon, which calculates the total carbon emissions from cell phone towers annually to be 11.76 billion pounds or 5.3 million tons. And the cost of diesel every year (average price of diesel = $0.7) is about $1.4 billion (INR 6400 Crores). Thus by replacing diesel generators with solar panels in cell phone towers more than 5 million tons of carbon emissions could be prevented from entering the atmosphere.

As a first step the government will make it mandatory for mobile phone towers to be powered by solar energy, a move which will reduce pollution and greatly scale down a key driver of diesel consumption in the country. The Indian government will also extend 30% subsidy, applicable as per the guidelines laid out in Phase I of the National Solar Mission.

Vikram Solar has built considerable experience by the way of successful implementation of various multi mega watt level projects in the remotest part of the Globe. The fact that the company has successfully executed various EPC projects in both foreign land and in India gives it a distinctive competitive advantage for erection and solarization of telecom towers. Vikram Solar has a strong in-house R&D team that is continuously evolving new technologies to increase the module efficiency. It has a tie- up with BESU (Bengal Engineering & Science University) in Kolkata, and strong relation with various major technology providers. This provides the company with a cutting edge on the new technology developments.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is under the process of preparing a consultation paper on "Green Telecom," which addresses critical issues such as the increasing carbon foot print-contribution of the telecom industry, the need for carbon credit policy for the sector at-large, available methods/options to reduce the carbon foot print, standardization of Green Telecom equipment and increased incentive for their adoption. A framework for monitoring carbon emission and corrective action for the telecom sector is also in discussion.

Telecom operators and infrastructure providers are already aware of the kind of benefits and advantages of switching over to solar power. Mr. Gyanesh Chaudhary, Managing Director, Vikram Solar says; "The telecom players are now investing heavily in energy efficient systems which will involve a domestic trading scheme for energy efficiency, certified under the National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency under the National Action Plan for Climate Change (NAPCC)." As a result of rapid scale up, as well as technological developments, the price of solar power is likely to attain parity with grid power in the near future and this will enable accelerated and large-scale expansion thereafter. In fact today the payback period for solar power telecom compared with diesel power is just 3 years. Since solar is a technology for decentralized generation telecom application is the perfect match where power is generated and consumed at the same location. It may be termed as "Decentralised Generation"

It is this opportunity that Vikram Solar wishes to exploit. It is enthusiastically dedicating itself to the erection and solarization of telecom towers. As a company committed to caring for the environment, Vikram Solar has embarked on a mission to solarize maximum number of telecom towers in India.

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