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Alcatel-Lucent solar-powered site connects remote Senegal islands

Tony Chan | February 28, 2008 | 0 Comments

Remote communities in the former French colony of Senegal can now use mobile phones as a result of the installation of Alcatel-Lucent’s 200th solar-powered cell site.

The French equipment maker installed a GSM site, including the base station, microwave and other electrical components, is powered entirely by solar energy. The site now enables residents on the island of Bettenty and surrounding Saloum islands to access the wireless infrastructure for the first time.

“In a site like Bettenty, the low power consumption of the Alcatel-Lucent GSM Base Station was critical in enabling the service provider to use solar power as the only source of energy for the cell site,” Alcatel-Lucent said. “The base stations low power consumption means that only a few solar panels are required, making the site very affordable to deploy.”

The Alcatel-Lucent claims that its solution now offers power consumption levels up to 40% less than its competitors with no decrease in traffic load or coverage.
The announcement comes amid a flurry of similar announcements both on the improved power efficiency of base stations as well as the use of renewable energy such as solar and wind for power.

In December, Motorola announced the successful completion of a trial site in Namibia that used a combination of solar and wind power to operate for a period of six months without any external power source while Ericsson announced the deployment of solar-powered macro base stations for Indonesian operator, Telkomsel. Two Asian mobile operators are expected to announce plans to deploy more than 500 new base station sites powered by solar and wind in the coming months, according to Dawn Haig-Thomas, director of the GSM Association’s Development Fund.

Meanwhile, Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson have detailed energy savings of their new base stations of 70% and 60% respectively over previous generations of equipment.

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