Indian telecom sector is one of the big success stories of recent times. Both the GSM and CDMA players have been adding millions of subscribers every month and India continues to be a high growth market globally for telecom. Since urban penetration is moving towards a point of saturation, rural India is the next big target for a lot of telecom companies. Which basically means there will be thousands of telecom towers installed all across rural India in the next few years. (By some estimates this number is close to 30,000 towers.)
Now the question is, given the erratic power supply situation in rural India, how will these telecom towers get powered? One usual suspect is the Diesel Generator, with the cost per KW being in the range of Rs.20-25. Even with the high cost, there are issues of fuel availability, quality characteristics of the electricity generated, operations and maintenance issues etc.
It makes sense to power these off-grid telecom towers with renewable energy sources like Solar, Wind or Bio-Mass. A hybrid between Solar and Bio-mass gasifier-run-turbine plant seems especially suitable, considering the clean energy generated, better characteristics of power etc.
This may be the first big breakthrough for Clean Energy application in India.
PS - I know a few companies who are trying to solve this problem, but lets see who wins the race.
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