Tawanai

Vodafone Qatar and Alcatel-Lucent announced the deployment of the first hybrid powered Base Station in Qatar, using an integration of solar and wind energy. Vodafone and other companies intend to learn from these trial sites and plans to apply these techniques all over the world.

The wind turbine at the Qatar site has been mounted at the top of the existing mast to leverage higher winds. The energy controller brings intelligent control to simultaneously draw power from both the photovoltaic panels and wind turbine, based on solar intensity and wind speed, making the most – at every second – of the two sources’ fluctuating availability. The system also carefully monitors battery charging cycles and diesel generator maintenance runs so as to maximize their lifespan. A full monitoring system enables real-time tracking of all weather and energy parameters; a key component to enabling large scale deployments.

Conservation, Energy, Environment, Green, Infrastructure, Solar alcatel, telecom, vodafone

The energy crisis in Pakistan is changing the way telecom industry consumes and manages power. In a welcome move, Universal Service Fund has made it mandatory for the telecom operators in rural areas, where USF is providing subsidy, to power their infrastructure through renewable energy sources. This not only makes sense financially but also from an environmental perspective. Telenor and Warid had already taken some initiatives along these lines. Here’s the statement from USF.

It has been observed that commercial power has not reached most of the areas where USF is running rural telecom projects, which proves to be a barrier to provide smooth uninterrupted telecom service. Even where commercial power infrastructure is available, the availability of power is extremely limited. As a result, the telecom operators have to rely on diesel generators. But not only there is the cost of diesel, the re-fueling at these sites is also a big and expensive hassle. At the same time, there is also a great need for cross-cutting operational expenses for maintenance of remote and hard-to-reach remote sites. Therefore, it was decided in the meeting that operators will bid for all future infrastructure in unserved areas with renewable energy solutions.

This decision will play an important role in reducing the energy costs and is also a small contribution towards dealing with the energy crisis in Pakistan. Moreover, this initiative will also help reduce carbon content in the atmosphere.

Wind, solar and other forms of non-fossil fuel energy, such as hydro and geothermal can contribute in this effort. Thus hundreds of renewable energy solutions will get deployed which will not only reduce Green House Gasses (mainly CO2) emissions in the atmosphere, it will also help bring down prices of solar and wind power solutions in the country.

Clean Technology, Energy, Green, IT, Solar, Wind

The September issue of the Harvard Business Review presents a well researched yet simple study on sustainability and green for companies wanting to save money and be green.

Here is an excerpt…

There’s no alternative to sustainable development.Even so, many companies are convinced that the more environment-friendly they become, the more the effort will erode their competitiveness. They believe it will add to costs and will not deliver immediate financial benefits. Talk long enough to CEOs, particularly in the United States or Europe, and their concerns will pour out: Making our operations sustainable and developing “green” products places us at a disadvantage vis-à-vis rivals in developing countries that don’t face the same pressures. Suppliers can’t provide green inputs or transparency; sustainable manufacturing will demand new equipment and processes; and customers will not pay more for eco-friendly products during a recession. That’s why most executives treat the need to become sustainable as a corporate social responsibility, divorced from business objectives…..

Please leave a comment if you want the full report.

Environment, Green, Innovation

Green is in these days. The US cellular company Sprint has come up with an “Eco-friendly” phone which it thinks will help it with winning over those who favor green products. The phone is said to be made up of 80% recycled material and also offers quick access to eco-friendly applications. Sprint has been facing a decline in subscribers and is looking for ways to regain market share. See their marketing approach below. Will you go with a phone company because of their approach towards environment or for that matter, that company’s business practices? or do you care about their service and price above all?

Via: TelecomPk.Net

Clean Technology, Consumers, Economics, Green phones

Buildings, Energy, Green

Came across a paper from McKinsey which talks about how IT can cut its carbon footrpint.

The rapidly growing carbon footprint associated with information and communications technologies, including laptops and PCs, data centers and computing networks, mobile phones, and telecommunications networks, could make them among the biggest greenhouse gas emitters by 2020. However, our research also suggests that there are opportunities to use these technologies to make the world economy more energy and carbon efficient. An analysis of five groups of abatement opportunities finds that such technologies could help to eliminate 7.8 metric gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually by 2020 equivalent to 15 percent of global emissions today and five times more than our estimate of the emissions from these technologies in 2020.

About the role of ICT in cutting emissions:

Information and communications technologies can help abate far more emissions in the general economy their own production and use generates. We estimated this abatement potential by studying all known opportunities to optimize energy productivity in four sectors—buildings, power, transport, and manufacturing. Then we calculated the specific energy savings and the associated abatement potential for one significant group of opportunities in each of the sectors. We also looked at a set of opportunities that cut across sectors:

telecommuting and other technological substitutions for emission-producing activities. In just these five areas, we identified annual reductions of 7.8 metric gigatons of carbon emissions by 2020. Because we did not review all prominent opportunities to reduce them—for example, we excluded satellite surveillance to monitor deforestation and herding, two of the largest contributors to climate change—the full impact of information and communications technologies could be much greater.

The full paper is available at McKinsey site or leave a comment.

Environment, Green, IT

The whole world is looking at what the US will do for the green technology and solar power. Here’s a point of view from Examiner blog.

The debate over future energy alternatives continues as countries deliberate on government subsidies and clean energy companies develop new technology, while fossil fuel companies adjust supply based on market pricing of oil, natural gas and coal. However, energy stocks have been recently outperforming the market according to several market analyst firms.

One of the myths of government subsidies for green energy or the clean tech sector is that U.S. or state legislation will fully support domestic companies and jobs, which is not the case. Actually, a bill designed to offer incentives for consumers to install solar panels on their homes and hoped to create a certain number of green jobs may lead to environmental benefits for the U.S.; yet the panels may ultimately be manufactured overseas in a country where the cost of labor is significantly less than the U.S.

Another misconception pervasive in the general pubic is that solar panel installations on homes are the most efficient way to harness solar energy. In contrast, “solar farms” represent an underutilized source for solar energy. It has been documented in Semiconductor International that the United States could supply its entire energy demand by covering just 1.6% of its land area with solar cells. Furthermore, putting solar cells on 1% of the area of global deserts would be sufficient to produce electricity for all the people in the world.

The United States may be able to remarkably reduce foreign oil imports and pollution-oriented sources of fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas over the next 20 years; however, the nature of emerging legislation at both the federal and state level will dictate how well the country capitalizes on the green revolution, including job creation and the trade deficit, and the transformation from high carbon emission industrialization to clean alternative energy sources such as solar power.

Clean Technology, Green, Policy US Policy

Read more about OPEN Forum at TelecomPk.Net

Session I
Where’s the Green in Clean? Investment Opportunities, Valuations and the Funding Gap in Cleantech

Traditionally, early stage company executive and investor financial expertise has been focused on company financing. Yet, in many cases, Cleantech demands more.

Many Cleantech executives will be shepherding technologies to commercialization that will require large amounts of capital. Cleantech companies and capital sources will need to build well-informed financial relationships and new financial structures to facilitate capital deployment and allow Cleantech companies to tap into the appropriate financial sources. This need for information and collaboration is more important than ever, given the current state of traditional credit and financial markets.

This discussion will feature a wide range of investors (venture capitalists, private equity investors, hedge fund managers, public financiers, and investment bankers) to delve into the full range of financing the Cleantech industry – from seed financing of nascent inventors, venture financing of emerging-stage companies through international and cross industry joint ventures, from first commercial demonstration to utility scale project development and finance, to IPO, PIPEs and beyond.

The panelists will discuss the capital flow implications for the Cleantech sector. Where Cleantech money is really coming from, what the investment criteria is for each type of investor, where the money is going and why, and how the money is being spent.

Clean Technology, Consumers, Energy, Events, Green, Innovation

Andrew Winston, the co-author of the best-seller Green to Gold states that the green movement may be at risk of slowing down, especially within the business community. Many business people hold on to an outdated view of green: the misconception that environmental practices always cost a lot of money. So logically, in this economy they’re asking, “Is this really the time for green? Can we really afford it now?”

At same time, most of the global discussion about getting the economy on track focuses on the macro picture — large stimulus packages at the national and industry level. But how can the economy as a whole get on its feet if individual companies don’t as well?

I believe that these two questions — can we still go green and how do we revive the economy — are heavily intertwined. In this time of austerity, sustainability is perhaps even more relevant and will provide a path out of this mess. One of the core pillars of going green is doing more with less — saving physical and financial resources. So while the instinct may be to pull back from green initiatives in hard times, that would be shortsighted and a huge mistake.

Not only should companies not put their green efforts on hold, they should accelerate them in targeted ways to save money quickly and prepare for the future. Those who navigate these tricky waters the best will emerge from the downturn in better shape than their competitors.

More at Harvard Business Blog.

Energy, Environment, Green

I wrote about this new venture with promising technology. Here’s a picture of a demonstration plant which  can process 25 tons of waste a day using technology developed by the startup InEnTec. (Credit: InEnTec)

Companies using similar technologies have failed in the past so lets hope that this time the effectiveness and economic feasibility is there.

Clean Technology, Electricity, Green, Innovation