Vodafone in South Africa plans to avoid the recent problems it has had with South African power outages with more hydrogen-powered fuel cell base stations.
To support remote mobile cell sites, Vodafone puts in on-site generation and microwave backhaul. The sites can be dedicated to 2G, 3G, 4G or use multiple technologies.
Most mobile phone base stations which are too remote for mains power run with a diesel generator, but with an eye to CO2 emissions Vodafone is keen to reduce the use of diesel. It’s also noisy and smelly – which limits where it can be use – and significantly, it is valuable.
Thefts of fuel lead to regular outages, and in some parts of Africa it’s not unknown for people charged with running the base stations to sell the fuel and then charge people to climb the tower to get a signal.
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