BT continues sustainable development with se…

BT Group has started a trial of its first self-powered mobile tower, following up on its commitment to deploy environmentally friendly network technologies in line with its green agenda.

Located in the Shropshire Hills in Britain’s West Midlands, the mobile tower runs on renewable energy sources, 70 percent of which comes from on-site solar panels and wind turbines, BT explained in a statement.

The self-powered mast is now fully active, providing 4G and 5G networks to EE customers in the area. The deployment of the mast will serve as a trial to assess future deployment of similar technology at “hundreds of identified locations.”

BT said it chose Shropshire Hills following an environmental assessment which calculated the “viability of the area for renewable energy”, generated from solar and wind energy to charge the batteries for the tower.

In the event that insufficient power is available, BT will use a backup generator that runs on hydrotreated vegetable oil, classified as a green fuel and generated from a variety of waste or residual oil.

The sustainable tower is expected to provide 17,000 kWh of wind and solar energy annually and save more than £10,000 in costs.

“It is of paramount importance that we increase the energy efficiency of our networks, which is why we are very excited about the potential of self-sustaining locations to enable us to meet both our sustainability and connectivity ambitions,” said Greg McCall , Chief Networks Officer at BT.

At a press conference in February, BT executives announced their plans to make network deployment more sustainable, pointing to the adoption of self-powered mobile towers.

BT also introduced cell sleep technology in June, software that allows certain locations to go into sleep mode during periods of low traffic, saving energy consumption by 4.5 million kWh per year.