A range of factors including pledges to reduce GHG emissions, the desire to minimize the impact of rising energy prices, and the decreasing cost of deploying base stations run on clean energy is driving telecom service providers to create more sustainable systems for delivering their services. According to a new report from Pike Research, however, the pathway to achieving these goals has shifted: The focus of green telecom has swung strongly to energy efficiency. While clean power is not to be discounted, operators (and thus suppliers) are placing much more emphasis today on curbing power consumption than on deploying green base stations.
By 2016, Pike Research forecasts, sustainable telecom network infrastructure investments will represent over 61% of global telecom capital expenditures, representing a $194 billion market. Of these investments, 65% will go into mobile networks in 2016.
“Green power is not feasible or economical at all locations,” says research director Eric Woods. “In most cases, some type of green power supply can be deployed, but there are areas where this is not an option or the ROI is too low to justify. Services such as network and site planning can also reduce the energy needed to run a network, and vendors are also placing more emphasis on their own supply chains to reduce energy consumption and decrease emissions.” Continue reading
