At least 50% of all rural telecom towers and 20% of the urban towers are to be powered by hybrid power (Renewable Energy Technologies + Grid power) by 2015 and a further 75% of rural towers and 33% of urban towers are to be powered by hybrid power by 2020.
These and other recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on ‘green telecommunications’ have been accepted by the government and directions have been issued to service providers.
According to the new rules, all telecom products, equipments and services in the telecom network should be certified “Green Passport [GP]” by the year 2015. Telecommunication Engineering Centre, the Department of Telecom’s technical arm, will certify telecom products, equipments and services on the basis of ECR ratings.
“All service providers should declare to TRAI the carbon footprint of their network operations. The declaration of the carbon footprints should be done twice in a year,” the regulator stated.
The new rules further state that “service providers should adopt a voluntary code of practice encompassing energy efficient network planning, infra-sharing, deployment of energy efficient technologies and adoption of Renewable Energy Technology (RET) to reduce carbon footprints.”
Besides, the service providers should also evolve a ‘Carbon Credit Policy’ in line with carbon credit norms with the ultimate objective of achieving a maximum of 50% over the carbon footprint levels of the Base Year (2011) in rural areas and achieving a maximum of 66% over the carbon footprint levels of the Base Year in urban areas by the year 2020.
The rules also direct the service providers to aim at carbon emission reduction targets for the mobile network of 5% by the year 2012-2013, 8% by the year 2014-2015, 12% by the year 2016-2017 and 17% by the year 2018-2019.
