The Emfihlweni community in northern KwaZulu-Natal has received electricity for the first time through Vodacom's solar-powered base station in the area.
Providing renewable energy to Emfihlweni forms part of Vodacom's Community Power initiative, a pilot project which, if successful, could become the first in a series that will be rolled out over the next few years.
According to Vodacom, this project demonstrates how mobile operators can contribute to the energy shortfall in many remote areas, through oversupplying base stations with renewable energy which can be diverted to critical points within the community.
A quarter of the total electricity generated by Vodacom's base station in Emfihlweni is being used to supply power to the community water pump, a local shop that will provide a cellphone charging station for people living in the area, and the local high school, which yesterday switched on power to its computer centre for the first time.
“Powering rural communities with excess energy from Vodacom's green base stations is not only a game changer for rural areas that have no access to power, but it also increases the quality of education and promotes economic growth by increasing the number of hours traders can work,” says Vodacom.
Almost a third of the population in SA has no access to electricity and the majority of these people live in rural areas. “Access to electricity is a key enabler of social and economical development, so this initiative is extremely important to the community,” Vodacom MD Sipho Maseko said in a statement.
“Without electricity, learners at Emfihlweni High School would perhaps never have had access to computer training or the Internet,” he added.
Weighing options
“The use of wind and solar power to assist in powering remote base stations within Africa is being driven both by the commercial benefits, through the reduction of increasing operational expenditure resulting from rising international fuel costs, as well as marketing and PR purposes and resulting positive brand perception.”
He adds, however, that initiatives extending excess power to communities would be the result of collaborative agreements, rather than economic benefit for the company.
“Base stations will not be able to be entirely powered through renewable power, as electricity production would fluctuate throughout the day, and a certain degree of base-load power provided by a generator set will still be required.”
Renewable energy will more likely be used to decrease generator use as opposed to replacing them entirely, he explains. “The generation capacity of these facilities will therefore still be linked to the power requirements of the base station, limiting any excess power production.”
The use of excess electricity to power remote communities would therefore be dependent on the strategic imperative of the company, says Bruton.
“They will design for their purpose but that is very short-sighted. It would have to be a push and collaboration whereby the community and or municipality and or Eskom proactively collaborate with the telcos for larger coverage and capacity.”
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