EMS helps telecom firms cut costs

Energy management systems (EMS) can help telecom companies slash their operating costs by up to 40 per cent, according to Indian-based supplier Acme Tele Power.

"Energy is the single biggest operational cost at a telecom site, it accounts for 35 per cent of the total," said CEO Sanjay Dhawan.

"Operators' revenue realisation per minute is declining. As telephony gets cheaper the average revenue realisation per user has to reduce."

Acme supplies thermal shelters for telecom equipment as well as energy management systems and also provides passive telecom equipment to operators on a revenue-sharing basis.

The solutions have been invented, developed and patented by Acme's Founder and Managing Director Manoj Kumar Upadhyay.

"The first energy management solution was developed for one of India's biggest telecom operators, Bharti Airtel, in 2003," added Dhawan.

"They were experiencing a lot of outages at their telecom sites due to erratic grid power. There would be a dip in the electricity supply and voltage fluctuations and operators were moving to diesel power generators. This not only increased pollution but also wasted fuel."

The equipment invented by Upadhyay is now being used at 60,000 telecom sites across India.

"India is one of the biggest telecom markets in the world and 200 million rural subscribers are set to come into the picture in the next two-and-a-half years."

The company's thermal shelters consist of panels containing a special material that maintains the temperature around equipment at a steady level, reducing the need for air-conditioning.

Acme also supplies filter-less air-conditioners that remove the need to employ teams to clean filters regularly to prevent the compressors over-heating.

"Companies have saved 100 litres of diesel at each site on an annual basis using these kinds of energy solutions," said Dhawan. "This savings are going up exponentially as the number of sites increases.

"We see interest in our products in the Middle East. We have an office at Jebel Ali with five employees and are planning to recruit more. Customers from Saudi Arabia and Oman have expressed interest in our solutions."

Dhawan said the Middle East and North Africa market was much smaller than India.

"But the region has a greater value because of the higher profit margins," he added. "The projected site sale in the next year is 400 to 500 sites for a whole country in this region.

"We don't look at a growth of less than 100 per cent even in our home market so the expectations are humongous. The Dubai office is our first international office – we operate in 30 countries but this will be the operational headquarters for the entire region."

Acme's main research and development laboratories are at Manesar in Haryana, India, and the company also has teams in the US and Canada. Its manufacturing plants in India make 250 complete thermal shelters every day.

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