Vodafone UK is deploying solar panels at a mobile telephone exchange site in Gloucester, England.
The telecommunications provider will be installing 720 solar panels at the site, expected to produce 240,000kW hours of energy per year. According to Vodafone, this will cover around 12 percent of the exchange site’s energy consumption.
According to the company, similar deployments will follow at other UK locations in the next two years.
The solar panels are a part of the company’s wider attempt to improve its energy efficiency. As well as this, Vodafone is intending to use AI, machine learning, and big data analytics at its 11,500 radio base stations to improve areas of the network that are over-consuming what is necessary.
“We all recognize the need to drive energy efficiencies – both from a financial and environmental perspective. The fact we’ve been able to decouple the link between data carried, energy consumption, and carbon emissions is thanks to our laser-focus on energy efficiency – and nowhere is this more important than across our network,” said Andrea Dona, UK network director at Vodafone.
“Using our own technologies to deliver brilliant programs such as big data and Smart Sites is hugely impactful. Onsite power generation is another important ambition, and I’m delighted we now have our first on-site solar up and running at our Gloucester MTX.”
The company first announced Smart Sites in 2021. These Smart Sites, now deployed at 1,300 of the locations with the highest energy consumption, combine IoT and AI to enable remote monitoring and reduce the need for engineering visits.
Vodafone claims that as a result of these energy efficiency measures, the company has kept its energy usage flat despite the amount of data being transferred increasing by 300 percent since 2019. In the same time period, Vodafone’s UK carbon emissions have fallen by 77 percent.
The company has a net-zero goal of 2027 and is already powered by 100 percent renewable energy. The solar power purchase agreement, the company's second in the UK, was signed in February 2023.
The company is set to finalize a merger with Three in the next few weeks. Talks between the two operators have been ongoing for six months now and a merger would be worth an estimated $17.5 billion. The last twelve months have also seen Vodafone consider selling its Spanish business unit for $4bn, and selling its Hungarian business unit and a stake in its Vantage Towers business.