“Operators’ energy costs keep rising, but efficiency measures and organizational change can lower them by 15 to 20 percent in a year, benefiting company profits and the environment”
“In current mobile networks, for example, transferring data only consumes around 15 percent of energy. Some 85 percent is wasted because of heat loss in power amplifiers, equipment kept idling when there is no data transmission, and inefficiency in systems such as rectifiers, cooling systems, and battery units.”
“Green-energy suppliers are cheaper in some markets. In India, the cost per kilowatt-hour of solar power is about 35 percent lower than grid power and about 65 percent lower than generator-set power. Some telecom operators are already taking advantage of such price differentials.”
The case for committing to greener telecom networks
“There are opportunities for companies to cut costs by generating their own green power on site. Japan’s NTT DOCOMO is reported to have reduced grid-power usage by as much as 40 percent at some of its base stations by using solar panels and higher-capacity batteries”.