Green initiatives bring 'green' to bottom line

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in RCR Wireless News’ January Special Edition, Wireless Infrastructure: The Engine for Economic Recovery. Look for our March Special Edition coming soon.
Green wireless infrastructure is going mainstream, with vendors competing to offer energy-efficient equipment and outfitting some sites to run on green power.
“Within the last year, the green angle has moved beyond the marketing fluff,” said Arpit Joshipura, VP of strategy and market development for Ericsson Silicon Valley. “It has become a mainstream agenda for operators, for vendors and for the society at large.”
However, “green networks” look different around the globe. Cell sites powered by solar, wind or fuel cell technology make business sense in countries where a power grid is unavailable or unreliable. In developed countries, particularly the U.S., operators often make their networks greener by increasing energy efficiency and so far have only dabbled in alternative power.
The GSM Association introduced a program last year to educate operators about green power and support financing partnerships and network rollouts. The group estimates that the 1,500 renewable energy cell sites in 2008 will grow to around 118,000 by 2012. Most of those sites will be in the developing world and help operators there save billions by avoiding diesel power for off-grid sites, said David Taverner, senior program manager for the Green Power for Mobile initiative.
In countries like the U.S., carriers are focused on reducing a site’s power needs, and mostly exploring green energy for sites in remote regions or national parks, Taverner added.
Richard Garafola, director of Alcatel-Lucent’s sustainable power solutions services group, said that the company recently turned on a fully green-powered trial site for a Middle Eastern customer and is in talks with at least eight to 10 companies to build similar sites.
“Our customers are demanding this,” said Garafola. “We’re really excited about the potential for these technologies in the industry.”
AT&T Mobility topped the recent Green Carrier Matrix report by research firm ABI, which gave particular weight to green infrastructure. The company has about 100 sites with fuel-cell back-up power and another 180 sites planned, according to Beth Shiroishi, AT&T’s associate vice president of corporate citizenship and sustainability.
But AT&T’s emphasis on energy efficiency has a far greater impact. The carrier was able to reduce its energy use by an estimated 289 million kilowatt-hours by turning down its TDMA network, Shiroishi said. AT&T also has plans to replace incandescent tower lights with LEDs and use ambient air for cooling when possible.
According to Aditya Kaul, principal analyst and director, mobile practice for ABI, carriers’ networks consume up to 70% or 80% of their overall power use.
“Reducing energy consumption is not just a moral thing, not just for branding, not just for marketing,” Kaul said. “Carriers will tell you that it’s affecting their bottom line, and that is a key motivation for them.”
As networks grow greener, they can help other industries do the same through mobile or machine-to-machine applications.
“We really see this as two sides of the same coin,” said AT&T’s Shiroishi. “There’s what we’re doing as a company, but also what we do to enable others that helps them reduce their environmental impact.”