Vodafone Launches Competition For Renewable Power Solutions For Its Towers

Global telecom conglomerate Vodafone has launched a global competition where players are invited to come up with innovations that can lead to generation of renewable power at mobile phone tower sites itself. Vodafone has joined hands with Vodacom, which is its Africa-based sister company as well as Vantage Towers, its European tower business.

In the ‘Renewable Power Challenge’, novel techniques will be invented to power the sites based in rural and remote areas having no power grids connections or where power outages are common. The solutions will also do away with the use of fossil fuels on mobile phone tower sites.

The key objective of Vodafone is to develop solutions in association with partners to serve over 160,000 mobile phone sites in both Europe and Africa, the company has said.

As per Vodafone, organisations will first have to register for an account to participate in the competition. Their proposals can only be submitted through a platform that is Vodacom-owned. There are two categories of competition. One is ‘Technology Solutions’ meant for power generation technologies, alternative fuels and innovative storage solutions. The other is Partnership Models that will concentrate on building and operating renewable energy led community power systems.

Duan du Toit, Vodacom Group Executive Head of Energy Performance, stated, “These types of solutions are particularly critical in the context of countries facing complex energy crises, such as in South Africa. Furthermore, we connect rural communities to a digital society where accessing clean energy is not only important for the environment, but it also allows network operators to better manage energy costs and provide more reliable, affordable and inclusive digital services to our customers.”

Vodafone informs that the selected companies/organisations will have to present their solutions to an audience that comprises over 4,000 technology companies at ARCH Summit coming October. The successful companies that make it to the final list will have to move towards a Proof of Concept (PoC) stage at sites within a Vodafone Group entity.