With over 400,000 telecom towers and forecasts of market growth to half a million sites by 2017, India is host to one of the largest passive infrastructure markets in the world and is reportedly consuming as many as 11 billion kWh per year, a figure expected to rise to 17 billion by 2016.
The Indian telecom regulator is now demanding towercos and MNOs to shift to renewable and hybrid sources of energy with stringent targets to be met by 2015. But Indian telecom players and industry associations have objected that the cost of this shift is simply not affordable for an industry already near its debt capacity.
