Singtel Sustainability Report 2012

		Manage wastes and hazardous materials responsibly		Manage efficient energy consumption		Reduce impact on climate change and GHG emissions		Conserve and manage water usage
		Other environmental issues		FY2012 Performance		FY2013 Targets

01 02 03

Renewable energy initiatives

The Bukit Timah Hill Radio Station’s alternative energy project came into operation in April 2011. It harnesses energy from the sun to supplement energy from the national power grid. The system comprises 100 pieces of solar panels with a total capacity of 24 kW that generated 23,420 kWh during the year.

The Grid-Tied Solar Photovoltaic System at our Pasir Ris Telephone Exchange yielded 46,026 kWh in FY2012 and between the two projects, we realised carbon emission reductions of 36 tCO₂e.

Singtel and GSMA collaboration on mobile
energy efficiency benchmarking

Green networks

In November 2011, the Singtel Group and our associated companies announced that we would jointly participate in the GSMA’s Mobile Energy Efficiency (MEE) Benchmarking initiative. GSMA is a global organisation that represents mobile telecommunications operators.

Through this exercise, a benchmark will be developed as a tool to drive energy reductions, cost savings and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in network operations. Results will be compared against industry peers using standard indicators. To deliver long-term improvements, the exercise will be conducted annually and outcomes tracked against the benchmarks. The results should help to identify areas to improve power consumption efficiency.

Since the introduction of the MEE Benchmarking service in 2010, 34 operators covering more than 200 networks have signed up to work with GSMA.

Singtel is currently upgrading to the latest generation of ‘green’ base stations (Ericsson 6000 series) which not only consumes up to 50% less energy from previous models, but can also support higher traffic capacity and/ or multiple technologies, 2G and 3G as well as LTE (Long Term Evolution) within one base station depending on the configuration.

Our assessment is that although the 6000 series is considerably more power efficient, this can be offset by the substantial increase in data traffic across our network, which has doubled over the past one year. Therefore the absolute energy use for Singtel is likely to be the same due to the rapid high growth in data traffic.

GSMA’s MEE Benchmarking result recently graded Singtel as one of the most optimum operators in terms of energy utilisation when looking at base station power versus network traffic performance.