With so many disparate power needs in European towers, this group was used to identify what the core requirements for tower power in Europe are, how costs can be managed and to look forward to potential solutions which may even allow tower owners to use their power storage solutions to their advantage.
Working group members
- Mirko Masi, Global Operations, Cellnex
- Eric Estrade, Principal Group Supply Chain Manager, Energy, Vodafone Procurement Company
- Nigel Moss, COO, Wireless Infrastructure Group
- Morag Pollock, General Manager, Towercom
- Kentaro Ono, Senior Manager, NTT Facilities
- Marek Switajewski, CEO, Electronic Control Systems
- Edmin Lutalala, Network Facilities Specialist, Airtel Tanzania
Plus senior representatives from:
- Ausonia
- Bejing Dynamic Power
- Bladon Jets
- Himoinsa
- North Star
- Vertiv
Tower Power - Working Group Summary
Efficiency and cost management
- Simplicity, modularity, reliability are the main issues for power in Europe
- Maintain and monitor – optimise the life of a battery
- Quality and lifecycle of batteries is important
- Where offered, energy (backup or generation) is the second biggest opex cost for a site even in Europe
Reducing theft and crime
- Although not on the scale of emerging markets, battery theft is still a problem in Europe
- Not worth tracking batteries; you need to prevent the theft
- Lithium ion batteries seem a good solution; if costs can be brought down
- Are batteries critical on a site?
Thinking outside the box
- Make the next generation of batteries work for you
- Split costs of substations with other industries in the local community
- Use smart metering to use dispersed energy sources to back up the grid
Customer service and customer needs
- Towercos want to provide the best service at the lowest cost
- Resilience is a customer service issue
- Need to upgrade batteries and power provision as colocations increase
- Can’t afford to be wrong when you’re providing critical national infrastructure
Metrics
- Outage is an important KPI
- Smart metering can improve billing accuracy
- Use metering to manage consumption
- Energy is an important part of opex
Executive summary
All of the participants discussed their power needs, which varied dramatically from a simple pass-through model to hundreds of thousands of sites requiring backup and power generation.
Power needs by location
Indeed, for some of the participants, their power requirements vary across different countries, with Cellnex only providing power as a service in two of the five countries in which they operate (Spain and Italy) and others having different needs based on tower location. The participants with larger portfolios all found that a proportion of their towers were off-grid, however, and did need some solutions in this area, although the bulk of their power needs are to back up a stable grid connection.
The participants agreed that they are seeing customers requesting more and more resilience, particularly in light of emergency frequencies being moved onto mobile networks.
Power as a cost
When discussing the cost of power in Europe, the group stated that around 70% of opex is eaten up by ground lease costs, with energy costs coming second and maintenance costs after that. Due to this, energy efficiency and the efficient maintenance of energy equipment is very important.
In terms of monitoring power consumption, the group discussed how smart meters have become cheaper to install, although one of our power experts pointed out that the ability to obtain the data is half the battle, and that getting access to the data and using it effectively is critical. One tower owner stated that smart metering had enabled them to make customer billing significantly more accurate.
Reducing theft
The conversation moved on to battery theft, which is still a problem in Europe, even if not on the same scale as in some developing markets. There was a discussion around whether tracking batteries was possible, but the group agreed that GPS is too costly and power hungry to warrant tracking individual batteries. All participants agreed that the ideal solution is to prevent the theft in the first place; either by hiding or disguising the batteries.
The merits of lithium ion batteries were also discussed, with participants agreeing that lower scrap value and fewer alternative uses making them much less of a target for thieves. However, in a region such as Europe, where theft is not as high, the fact lithium ion batteries cost 2.5-3x what lead acid batteries do makes the business case less straightforward. The group were keen to know if the prices of lithium ion batteries would come down in the near future.
Maintenance and cost
The participants found maintaining batteries is expensive, and discussed the possibility of eliminating them altogether, but concluded that, when running critical national infrastructure they ‘don’t have the right to be wrong’ in terms of outage.
The session ended with a discussion around utilising power infrastructure to minimise costs. One suggestion was that the cost of building and running substations could be split with other industries in the local community. The possibility of using disseminated energy sources such as batteries across a portfolio of towers to back up the grid was also discussed and flagged as a potential option for infrastructure owners.
Supporting insights from leading power solutions providers in Europe
MediPower: How MediPower makes going off-grid in Europe easy
Beijing Dynamic Power Co., Ltd.: China’s leading telecom power supply company looks globally
Bladon Jets: Jet powered micro turbine gensets offer a more efficient alternative to traditional DGs
HIMOINSA: Power solutions for the global telecom industry
NorthStar Battery: More than just a battery company
Vertiv: Powering toward cost reduction
