Renewable energy (green ICT) support for mobile communications in Africa

In the past decade, the telecommunication and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry has grown very fast with increasing appetites for modern value added services and gadgets which function without any break, delay or interferences. Currently, total worldwide mobile subscription have grown to 5.3 billion and mobile internet subscription to 2 billion at the end of 2010, and these numbers are expected to double within five years (1). The growth trend in Africa is not different. It is expectation that the mobile subscriber base will rise to 1 billion at the end of 2010 (2). This growth therefore requires more reliable and sustainable energy for effective operation. However, about nearly 1.6 billion people in the world do not have access to electricity and about 99 percent of this figure is from developing countries. This shows that about 1.3 billion people from Sub-Saharan African do not have access to the grid electricity (3). This paper looks at energy consumption of telecommunication and ICT in African countries, the potentials of introducing renewable energy into telecommunication and ICT sector in Africa especially in the rural communities. It is expected that, the deployment of renewable energy will provide a reliable and sustainable power supply, in the Telecom/ICT industry thereby making access to ICT much easier and at a lesser cost.