Leading global telecommunications company Bharti Airtel announced its contract with Ericsson, a global mobile telecommunications equipment vendor. The contract will include the upgrading of 250 diesel powered base stations in Nigeria with E-site, a new “green” energy solution from Flexenclosure. E-site technology is a means of providing power through renewable energy like solar and wind power in order to help businesses go off-grid for their power demand. Power is obtained through the renewable resources and then stored in a battery bank as well as used to power the plants. According to the E-site site, the aim of the company is to “generate and conserve energy in order to optimize energy usage.” Bharti Airtel is currently operating with 19 sites across Asia and Africa and are planning to expand. The ‘green' mobile initiative is said to improve operations and minimize environmental impact. The contract serves as an agreement that Ericcson will be responsible for implementation and maintenance services for all the sites. Manoj Kohli, Joint Managing Director & CEO of Bharti Airtel, said, “We are happy to take the lead in deploying and rolling out state-of-the-art green power solutions and reducing our dependency on diesel. This latest initiative will not only enable us to significantly reduce operating costs but also contribute to the reduction in the greenhouse effect. Going forward, we aim to introduce and take forward this green and efficient initiative in the rest of our operations.” “The new green and highly cost efficient base station solution makes not only environmental sense, but also financial sense for our customers, enabling the efficient deployment of services to previously unserved or under-served areas,” Ericsson Head of Sub-Saharan Africa Region Lars Linden said. BM
