In the small village of Kabunyata, in the middle of rural Uganda, 100 households and 20 small businesses have electricity for the first time. The kids have light so they can study in the evening. Fresh water is being pumped in from the local reservoir. It’s a good place to be. This project is the result of a co-operation between the German government’s Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Kirchner Solar Group and Airtel, which uses the mobile phone tower as anchor tenant. It’s working not just for the community but also for the telecommunications industry – opex has been cut by 40%, uptime statistics are impressive, and GIZ is keen to scale the initiative.
Leveraging mobile towers as anchor tenants to accelerate rural electrification in Uganda
