(task) Solar Cell Towers Spawning Microgrid Adoption in Africa - Manifest Mind, Inc.

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> http://manifestmind.com/solar-cell-towers-africa/ <http://manifestmind.com/solar-cell-towers-africa/>
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> SOLAR CELL TOWERS SPAWNING MICROGRID ADOPTION IN AFRICA
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> Solar-powered cellular towers could be just the right solution to the expensive challenge of connecting and electrifying rural Africa. Currently, most of the world’s 640,000 off-grid towers are run on diesel <http://www.akcp.com/2013/11/solar-powered-remote-cell-tower-sites/>. Although the logistics of keeping a remote station fueled are significant, it is still far less expensive than extending an already inconsistent grid connection to the about 50,000 new remote towers that are built each year. Still, dirty diesel systems can drive 30-40% of a tower’s operating costs, so the market for a viable, clean, and renewable alternative to reduce operational costs is ripe for the picking.
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> At the same time, the technical challenges of powering a high demand, always on, system via solar are significant. At a typical demand of around 5 kW, a tower needs over 30m2 of PV producing at peak output, but practically needs far more Solar PV, a robust battery and a diesel hybrid system to be viable. Despite these challenges, renewable tower power is actively expanding in rural areas. For example, India has mandated that 50% of its rural towers run on renewable hybrid systems by 2015 and is making notable progress in meeting this goal. In fact, it is an Indian multinational, Bharti Airtel, that has brought this expertise to about 1000 of its towers towers in Africa <http://solarquarter.com/index.php/india/item/541-bharti-airtel-uses-green-energy-to-power-telecom-towers-in-africa>, with the intention to implement far more.
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> The hardware investments for powering rural towers are beginning to be leveraged to support broader sustainable outcomes. Schneider Electric has plans to bring it’s ‘VillaSol’ system to Zambia <http://www.itwebafrica.com/mobile/322-zambia/232338-schneider-electric-looks-to-power-zambian-cell-towers> which uses a solar hybrid system to create a microgrid that will fuel both the tower and nearby community buildings. Once in place, and as the communities power demand grows, it becomes more practical to add generation to the solar-powered cellular tower microgrid than to incur the expense of tying the community to the conventional grid. The new business cases available to the owner of the cell phone tower, are really only limited by imagination in the quickly growing African market, that is depending more on their mobile phones to improve their lives.
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> Manifest Mind has explored this market in depth in our report which explores the emerging opportunities in Africa related to mobile infrastructure, technologies, and applications with a special focus on sustainability factors. The report includes a discussion of the massive opportunities to use mobile technology to improve sustainability outcomes for the environment, the economy, and for African society. A market forecast through 2020 is provided. This report is available as an electronic book. <http://manifestmind.com/downloads/mobile-africa/>