In Africa, energy access is at the top of the list for the tower industry. Access to reliable, cost-effective and sustainable power is a key driving factor for towercos, Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) mobile operators and other stakeholders.
TowerXchange speaks with Neil Smith, Growth Strategy Manager at Caterpillar, one of the leading providers for power systems on the continent, to understand how energy solutions are evolving to become smarter, more scalable, and resilient to meet the growing pressures of Africa's tower ecosystem.
TowerXchange: I’m sure most readers know of Caterpillar but for anyone less familiar, please introduce yourself and the role Caterpillar plays in Africa’s telecoms and digital infra sector
Neil Smith, Growth Strategy Manager, Caterpillar:
My name is Neil Smith, Growth Strategy Manager for Caterpillar Retail Electric Power Solutions, and I have been working with Cat® dealers to service Africa’s telecoms sector for over twenty years. Throughout that time, Caterpillar equipment and services have been powering the telecoms sector and, more recently, supporting digital infrastructure such as data centres.
Most people in the tower industry will know Caterpillar from the small generator sets that power off-grid towers, but we also have experience supporting the industry with larger generator sets in the backbone network. A backbone network is a crucial component of a computer network that links various networks, facilitating the exchange of information between different LANs or subnetworks. Caterpillar has been providing a wide range of products and services, for small 1 kW tower sites all the way up through data centers with 300 MW load requirements.
A lot of our data centre experience comes from supporting major players in North America and Europe, but we are leveraging that knowledge with our many decades working on power systems in Africa to develop solutions that fit both the business needs and the operating environment.
TowerXchange: Service Lease Agreements (SLAs) often demand 99.5% or higher uptime, can you talk about recent improvements in reliability and autonomy of your energy solutions?
Neil Smith, Growth Strategy Manager, Caterpillar:
Caterpillar now has 100 years of experience in developing reliable and dependable products to meet our customers’ needs regardless of the application. As part of the development process, serviceability is a key focus area. To ensure we can be there for our customers wherever they are located throughout the world, we rely on our Cat dealer network. This network has local service technicians that are used to working in high-uptime environments, whether that’s telecoms, data centres, hospitals, airports, or any number of critical infrastructure projects.
All our products are designed with telemetry, which allows us to remotely monitor equipment performance and use facts and data to make valuable maintenance and repair recommendations before the equipment shuts down, which in turn creates valuable uptime for our customers; smart repair before failure is our motto in Caterpillar.
Regarding product design, we are addressing the telecom tower market with a modular hybrid power solution that promotes reliability through multiple energy sources. Our new ETS150 telecom hybrid energy system will combine grid power (where available) with solar panels, battery storage and a Cat diesel generator set as standby.
The concept is to utilize the lowest-cost energy source available at any given time but still have the proven reliability of the Cat generator set ready to support the high uptime requirement. The ETS150 system has recently been proven at a test site in Mali which achieved 100% uptime over a six-month period, which should readily be achievable in most applications with the right monitoring and maintenance. The system produced an over sixty percent reduction in fuel usage over the test period.
In terms of autonomy, these solutions are designed with remote operation in mind. We know that many off-grid towers are difficult and expensive to visit regularly, so the ETS150 has been designed to require minimum maintenance.
We would size the combination of solar, battery and diesel to minimise the use of fuel and the number of site visits required for fuelling and maintenance. This “arms-length” approach works when combined with effective remote monitoring and predictive maintenance, so again, it is a whole system approach that allows both reliability and autonomy.
TowerXchange: Increasing co-locations and technology upgrades are putting pressure on energy demands per site, how do you ensure scalability to accommodate increasing power requirements?
Neil Smith, Growth Strategy Manager, Caterpillar:
This was certainly an aspect we considered carefully throughout the design of the ETS150 hybrid system. It is a modular system that allows for field upgrades in the number of rectifiers, batteries and solar maximum power point tracking (MPPT).
We have a recent experience with a customer whose power demand doubled between providing us with the site loads and the equipment being installed on site. We could mitigate the issue quickly by supplying a larger generator set and adding battery capacity in the field without requiring major rework.
We have seen situations where energy systems have been installed that have a bespoke DC generator set, controls and batteries all tightly fitted in a single cabinet. This approach certainly reduces initial capital cost and installation time, but it is difficult or impossible to upgrade.
The ETS150 can upgrade from 15 kWh to 150 kWh of energy storage and uses a standard AC Cat generator set which can easily be swapped out for one with a larger capacity. Cat dealers hold large stocks of generators across the size range, so the upgrade is usually a matter of days anywhere on the continent, rather than waiting for bespoke DC generators to be imported.
Our approach has been to create a modular system to allow flexibility because we know that the only constant in the mobile telecom world is the speed of change!
TowerXchange: Africa’s telecom infrastructure owners suffer high vandalism rates, particularly in core markets like South Africa and Nigeria. How do you ‘harden’ solutions to protect against fuel and equipment theft?
Neil Smith, Growth Strategy Manager, Caterpillar:
There are many ways of looking at the security issue, but again we feel that it is a systemic approach that is required rather than one size fits all.
We look to use major components such as batteries that can be geofenced and remotely locked out if they are moved from the site to minimise their value. We look to minimise the amount of fuel needed to be held on-site to reduce the risk of fuel theft or recommend possibly using underground tanks. We can monitor fuel usage against engine run time to identify if fuel is being siphoned. Remote monitoring systems can include door access alarms or even video security cameras.
Of course, some of these security mitigations have an added cost so good local knowledge can tell us where it is required and where it isn’t. We have a Cat dealer operating in every corner of the continent with decades of local knowledge who can tailor the security approach to local needs.
TowerXchange: Energy networks also need to become smarter. How are you incorporating software into your hardware products to improve efficiency, visibility and equipment lifecycle?
Neil Smith, Growth Strategy Manager, Caterpillar:
Controls and monitoring have long been a key part of our product specifications, and that is where the interaction between hardware and software happens. We remotely monitor Caterpillar equipment globally, and this data has been used over the years to optimise maintenance, maximize uptime and improve equipment lifetimes.
Live telemetry combined with other data, such as that from scheduled oil sampling, can give us a clear picture of how a piece of equipment is performing and what can be done to improve performance.
A more recent approach has been to use artificial intelligence combined with our huge volumes of condition monitoring data to automatically prepare and summarize actions required to optimise the use of specific equipment. We are committed to investing in digital innovations through several technologies, including AI.
TowerXchange: How do you balance the needs of cost, reliability and emissions reduction? What trade-offs are being made to deliver for your customers?
Neil Smith, Growth Strategy Manager, Caterpillar:
The trade-offs required are going to be customer and location-specific, and we would always tailor an energy solution to meet the customer's needs. In some regions we serve, such as North America and Europe, emissions reduction is legally mandated, but grid availability is typically very good, so reliability is less of an issue.
In Africa, due to the economic and technical environment, we focus more on cost, reliability, and access to fuel. As renewable technologies continue to advance and lower costs, it is helping drive towards more cost-effective sustainable solutions.
Solar energy in applications like telecom towers has proven to be cost-competitive against diesel, which would be the energy source of choice. However, there is a risk that with varying loads, such as we see from a mobile tower, it would be very easy to install too many batteries and solar panels, leading to underperformance of the assets.
Solar energy, with its low cost per kilowatt hour, is an appealing option. However, the initial investment required for batteries can be higher compared to diesel generators. Therefore, a cost-effective approach often involves a combination of solar panels, batteries, and diesel generators.
Solar panels can generate most of the energy needed, but when the sun is not shining, batteries store energy and provide a continuous power supply. Despite their higher cost, batteries offer the advantage of reducing reliance on diesel, lowering emissions and operating costs over time.
Diesel generators, on the other hand, are dependable and can manage loads when batteries run out, acting as a trustworthy backup to ensure the telecom site continues to function.
By combining solar panels, batteries, and diesel generators, we can achieve a balanced solution that leverages the benefits of renewables and can still cover the load indefinitely, even if issues arise with the solar or battery system.
In every case the modular system can be optimized for the customer needs. Some customers may put more value on emissions reduction than cost reduction, others may be focused more on optimizing capital expenditure and operating costs.
As battery and solar panel costs continue to come down, the balance may change for many customers, so again, having the flexibility to add solar and batteries to an existing installation without changing the complete installation is a key benefit of our ETS150 product. We intend the product to be “future-proofed” against increases in customer power demands and changes in the energy source between solar and diesel.
TowerXchange: Datacentre operators, towercos, MNOs and Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) are all looking for the optimal energy set-up. Do you see a standardised model emerging that can be applied from the core to the edge?
Neil Smith, Growth Strategy Manager, Caterpillar:
Some standards will be replicated across the range of requirements, particularly in terms of uptime standards, but the equipment solution is going to be different as it scales through the size range.
For large data centres, the solution may be modules of over 2 MW; for edge data centres, it may be modules of 500 kW. In many regions, the default fuel will be diesel or HVO, but some regions with access to lower-cost natural gas will want to use that fuel. A solar-diesel or solar-gas hybrid would seem to be a good approach, but it may be difficult to install enough solar panels to power multi-MW loads in preferred locations.
We have standard designs agreed with many data centre operators globally, and some of these are already being used in Africa. Still, the differing economics and operating environments will drive different solutions in different locations depending on the quality of the local grid, the availability of fuel, and the availability of adequate space for solar arrays.
Caterpillar and Cat dealers are already working on many different solutions. Although we may see standard configurations evolve locally, it is uncertain that there will be an “African” standard that suits every operating environment across the continent.
TowerXchange: Caterpillar is now making a move into Africa’s accelerating ESCO space, can you talk about the role you are looking to play in energy-as-a-service and touch on the commercial and operating structure?
Neil Smith, Growth Strategy Manager, Caterpillar:
Cat dealers have been involved in the ESCO business for a long time, it just wasn’t necessarily called that. Many Cat dealers have generator set rental fleets, and some have supplied telecom towers with generator sets, maintenance contracts, and fuel supply with availability guarantees.
These contracts have been ongoing as long-term rental contracts but were ESCOs in everything but name. In recent years some Cat dealers have supplied solar and battery solutions as part of these contracts, but the solutions were often locally designed and supplied.
The difference today with the launch of the ETS150 is that every Cat dealer will now be supplying a common modular product offering, with energy generation and storage using standard Caterpillar products with Caterpillar warranty and global support coverage.
The commercial relationship will be with the local Cat dealership, which already has a local legal entity and financial capabilities, as well as the engineering resources, workshops, warehouses, and remote monitoring systems required to support the business.
With existing businesses providing coverage to the whole African continent, Cat dealers have very low set-up costs compared to an ESCO starting up in a new territory to cover a new contract. As such they don’t have a minimum number of towers required to make an ESCO worthwhile.
We believe this approach will open the benefits of an ESCO contract to smaller operators or operators who have a limited number of remote or off-grid towers, where a pure ESCO company would have difficulty justifying the set-up costs.
To find out more Cat Electric Power Telecom solutions, visit: Telecom Generators | Cat | Caterpillar
