Leading mobile telephone operators in Africa are looking at wind and solar power in order to provide services to rural areas where roads are bad and there is no electricity.
Remote cell sites in Africa are usually powered by diesel generators with lead acid batteries providing back up in times of generator failure. But supplying fuel in areas with a very poor road infrastructure and where armed escorts may be required is very expensive and often near impossible. Other factors include the increasing cost of diesel fuel, together with concerns about diesel emissions and high maintenance requirements of both the generators and batteries.
These problems have lead groups such as Safaricom of Kenya to start integrating wind turbines or solar panels into the systems powering cellular sites.
Winafrique Technologies Ltd, an integrated renewable energy resource company in Nairobi, has completed over 70 installations using wind and solar hybrids resulting in a 70% reduction in energy costs at these sites.
An example of a successful installation is that of Laisamis, a town of 1000 people of the Soboto tribe (related to the Masai) located 200 miles north of Nairobi. It takes more than 24 hours on bandit filled roads to drive from Nairobi to Laisamis and once there, the remote town has no electricity, no running water, no sewers, no radio and no TV, but it does have cell phone service.
Although Laisamis is remote and household incomes are very low, the new base station is already handling thousands of calls daily. Local residents are able to contact law enforcement to advise of cattle theft, medical advice can be sought and families can keep in touch with those working in the major cities. In fact the lack of electricity to charge cell phones has become a barrier which Safaricom will overcome by adding a battery charging station to the base station facility, also to be powered by the wind.
Top Image: Kenyan farmer checking prices on a cell phone. (Source: Marketplace)
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