Japan-based NEC completed a demonstration project in India to introduce energy management technology using renewable energy sources at telecoms towers with unstable power supplies, with the goal of reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

The demo used solar power photovoltaic generation systems and lithium-ion rechargeable batteries to reduce dependency on diesel generators.

The project, run by NEC, showed that renewables can reduce diesel fuel consumption and lower energy costs and CO2 emissions, leading to a reduction in total cost of ownership of a site. It also demonstrated the reliability of prediction technologies using artificial intelligence to estimate power failures and recovery times.

Michihiro Ezawa, GM of NEC’s energy storage system division, said: “With approximately 400,000 telecoms tower sites throughout India, there is a great deal of promise for these technologies to significantly reduce the impact on our environment, while improving business conditions. Moving forward, we aim to proceed rapidly with the verification of business models that enable effective commercialisation of these technologies.”

It aims to commercialise the energy efficient technology in FY2019.

As part of the Indian government’s green telecoms policy, tower companies now are required to reduce use of diesel generators, which are used as backup in the case of power failures, the company said in a statement.

The Japanese and Indian governments collaborated to launch the project.