-
- About Vodacom
- Investors
-
Financial reporting
Annual reports Annual results Interim results Quarterly results Corporate documents
-
- Press
- Careers
- Your country
-
Select your local site for Vodacom products, services and customer support
South Africa
Lesotho
Mozambique
Tanzania
DRC
-
Company Name and page strapline
Free cooling
Story:
We’re rolling out free-cooling technology – systems that use normal outside air to cool our sensitive transmission equipment – at literally thousands of sites.
The equipment in a radio base station must be kept below a certain temperature. To get this right mobile operators have traditionally relied on power-hungry air-conditioners. Now, thanks to free cooling, when the outside temperature drops to below 20°C, outside air is fed into the bottom of the base station shelter and cools the equipment. The resulting warmer air is naturally (though high efficiency fan ventilation) let out through the top of the shelter.
The outside temperature at most of our sites is below 20°C, between 40% and 90% of the time. This is when free cooling kicks in, saving huge amounts of electricity and lowering our environmental impact. Free cooling also requires less maintenance than conventional systems and extends the life of existing air-conditioners.
The batteries that run the transmission equipment need to be kept below 25°C. (For every 10°C increase in temperature, battery life declines by half.) Now we’re working with our suppliers on developing free-cooling systems that will work even when the outside temperature reaches 30°C. We’re also investigating batteries that won’t deteriorate at temperatures of 55°C.
When the outdoor temperature is below 20°C, free cooling can save up to 87% of the air-conditioners’ power consumption. Each base station uses electricity costing some R2 000 a month, of which air-conditioners use 40%. This means that by installing clean free cooling, we’re cutting each base station’s electricity consumption by almost a fifth. And technological advances hold the promise that we will be able to reduce this even further.
So far, 2 648 sites in South Africa have been converted to free cooling and in 2012 we plan to convert another 1 000. There are some cases where free cooling is not an option; for instance where temperatures remain high throughout the year, or at coastal sites where there is simply too much corrosion. Eventually 6 000 sites will be converted to free cooling. We have already started trials on installing free cooling at base stations in Tanzania and Mozambique.