AIS operations go green for environment

In an attempt to become a more environment-friendly mobile-phone service operator, Advance Info Service (AIS) has announced its "green operator" strategy with a plan to implement many green technologies, such as solar cells, wind energy and biodiesel, as energy sources.

AIS executive vice president of operations Weerawat Kiattip-ongthaworn said the initiative was part of the company's environment-conservation commitment to

society.

Among the company's initiatives, the first is a plan to increase the use of solar-cell technology in its base stations - from 11 cell sites since late 2006 to 17 base stations by the end of the year. The adoption of solar-cell energy will allow the company to use alternative sources of energy instead of oil to generate electric power for its base stations, some of which are located in remote areas and do not have an electricity

connection.

"From our total 14,000 base stations, there are only 17 stations located in areas that lack electricity connections and there, oil is used to power a generator. Using solar cells is cheaper and more convenient, especially from a maintenance point of view as compared to diesel generators. However, the initial investment is more," Weerawat said.

He also said that using solar cells to generate green energy would help the company reduce energy costs by about 18 per cent.

Another green technology is wind energy. The company is running a trial for the use of wind power to generate electricity for its base stations. Weerawat said locations in coastal areas alone held the potential of adopting the technology.

The company plans to deploy wind energy at its base stations in Chon Buri and Samut Songkhram. If the trial works, the company will expand the deployment of wind energy to other base stations.

"The investment in wind power for each base station is about Bt3 million. We use it in order to reduce the use of electric power, not to replace it. The wind turbine generates about 500 watts for the base station, while each base station needs about 1,000 watts," Weerawat said.

The company also uses biodiesel, as opposed to diesel, as the main power source for generators that produce electricity for the base stations.

"For each mobile-switching centre, we have two generators as back-ups. These generators consume diesel. Instead of using diesel, we have tried the use of biodiesel for small-sized generators of 40 kilovolts, since the middle of last year. We plan to move to using bio-diesel in the large-sizes generators of 250 kVA," Weerawat said.

"The most important thing is not how much money we save but the amount of carbon-dioxide emissions we reduce. We want to be the one to take a lead in tackling the global warming issue. This is not about saving costs," he said.