Nigeria would soon benefit from a solar powered telecommunications network dubbed WorldGSM through a company under the Shyam Group, VNL.
The WorldGSM, registered under a Middle East and West African firm Shyam Group, VNL, will be the first solar powered broadband network in Nigeria specifically dedicated to serve rural areas.
It draws no energy from electricity grid. The network architecture, software and hardware are designed from the ground expected to spread existing GSM networks into the areas previously difficult to serve.
Nigeria has 5900 MW of installed generating capacity but with only 1600 MW generated with a planned 8 000 MW of hydro development.
Nigeria has a total population of 158 million, according to a World Bank report, and around 80 million of them in rural areas. Only 10 percent of the rural population is “on-grid.”
The Shyam Group initiative is therefore a much-needed solution, analysts say.
According to Shyam Group’s chairman Rajiv Mehrotra, WorldGSM broadband network is fully solar powered and a solution for rural and remote locations.
Many operators in the vast oil rich country haven’t catered for the rural poor as the move to the remote areas is not viable. Still, most of them rely on diesel.
Mehrotra claims that “where there is electricity in rural Nigeria” the masses only have access to it for “a few hours” turning some of them who can afford to use and own diesel powered generators which can’t be used around the clock to reduce fuel consumption.
On their site, VNL says its WorldGSM solar powered turnkey GSM system is specifically made for rural areas with ARPUs of less than $2 and is the first solar powered commercially viable GSM system independent of the power grid and without diesel generator backup.
By 2010, Nigeria had plans to increase access to electricity throughout the country to 85 percent. This required 16 new power plants, approximately 15 000 km of transmission lines, as well as distribution facilities.
A report claims only 10 percent of rural households and 40 percent of the country’s total population have access to electricity as Nigeria exports electricity to neighbouring Niger via a 132 kV interconnection constructed in 1976.
In the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, VNL was awarded the “Green Mobile – Best Green Programme Product or Initiative” and named as a Technology Pioneer 2010 by The World Economic Forum.
VNL was named the third most innovative company – and the most innovative telecoms company – in the world in the Wall Street Journal’s annual Technology Innovation Awards.
