MAR 24

Motorola wants the entire world to have a cell phone. And if that means building cell towers in the middle of rural Africa, then that's what they'll do. Unfortunately, many of these places are far off the beaten track...and the electrical grid. And trucking in fuel would be prohibitively expensive not to mention wasteful.

So Motorola has begun to build wind and solar powered cell towers in Africa. The pilot projects, which we discussed a while ago, have been declared a success, and they're looking for more sites to expand the program. It seems to me like this could only work very well in pretty specific areas though. The towers would have to be located in areas where:

1. There is plenty of wind and solar to keep the batteries charged
2. The landscape is flat, allowing for a large area to be covered
3. Population densities are low, so that the tower doesn't need too much power to service everyone
4. The people being served are not going to revolt if service goes out on still, cloudy days
5. Grid power is unavailable

Rural Africa seems to be the perfect place for these towers. Unfortunately, they might not find much of a niche in the rest of the world.

Via TreeHugger

Comments (3)

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written by Robbert, March 24, 2008

The area doesn't need to be too flat, as long as the antenna is stationed at the highest point. In fact this will increase range, and probably increase the energy from wind. You will have dead points behind hills and in gorges though.

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how much power?
written by Alex, March 25, 2008

How much power do cell towers use? If it's low enough that they can store it in batteries for the night (or calm days) then it's probably low enough that the required solar panels or wind turbine can just be stuck on the cell tower, in which case the power source will likely be a small fraction of the total tower cost.

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written by campbell, April 15, 2008

gotta jump into this. For several years, an idea has been promoted of using airships at very high altitudes as telecommunications relay platforms. The idea being that their high altitude would serve a huge footprint area. However, technology isn't available to create such airships.

Turtle Airships offers a different, do-able, idea: using multitudes of SOLAR POWEREDE, rigid, amphibious airships (not blimps!), flying at lower altitudes of 1-2 thousand feet above the ground, as alternatives to towers. This can effectively bring full broadband telecommunications to any locale, despite varied topographical features.

Additionaly, if these same airships were carrying passengers and cargos, it can generate huge economic benefits through increased transport, without the costs involved with roads, bridges, airports, etc.

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