Alcatel-Lucent Commissions 200th Solar Powered Base Station

Alcatel-Lucent says that it has just commissioned its 200th radio site powered by solar energy. The site - including base station, microwave and all other electrical components - is completely powered by the sun, providing telecom services to remote communities on the island of Bettenty and surrounding Saloum islands - in Senegal that previously had no access to wireless communications services.

In a site like Bettenty, the low power consumption of the Alcatel-Lucent GSM Base Station was critical in enabling the service provider to use solar power as the only source of energy for the cell site. The base stations low power consumption means that only a few solar panels are required, making the site very affordable to deploy.

"Thanks to Alcatel-Lucent power performance, mobile operators around the globe can reduce their network energy consumption costs and extend the radio coverage of their networks to remote areas. This is part of Alcatel-Lucent's innovative approach to reducing the cost of the network. Autonomously powered radio sites are an absolute necessity to extend the reach of mobile telecom networks to areas not covered by electricity grids. In sunny regions, solar power is an affordable, reliable and eco-friendly alternative to traditional diesel generators, whose dependency on the oil market makes operating costs expensive," said Laurent Cruchant, Alcatel-Lucent's Vice President for GSM business.

Posted to the site on 22nd February 2008