Flexenclosure scores AfricaCom award nomination

Flexenclosure has been nominated for its E-site base station site solution that is being run primarily on renewable energy and with the potential to share excess power with surrounding communities.

The AfricaCom Awards recognise and reward excellence in the African telecommunications market. Flexenclosure has been shortlisted in the AfricaCom Awards Rural Telecoms Awards category; The other entries are Ericsson, Movirtu Ltd, MTN Nigeria, MTN Uganda & Alvarion, and SafariCom. Last year, Flexenclosure won the Green Telecoms Award.

Flexenclosure has been nominated for “E-site with Community Power”. E-site is a base station site solution especially developed for off-grid markets in developing, mainly African, countries. E-site is an energy solution that enables base stations to be powered mainly by renewable energy (sun and wind). There is a battery bank for storage of generated energy and the wind turbines have been modified and perfected for this particular purpose. The key ingredient is Diriflex, the control system used to optimize the performance of the solution.

The solution has proved to reduce base stations’ diesel consumption and CO2 emissions, by as much as 90 per cent when they are running on a 24/7 basis, and to reduce operating expenses by over 80 per cent.

Community Power is an E-site product developed together with Ericsson. As a system it provides the possibility to share the power produced by E-site with the surrounding local communities to power e.g. mobile and battery chargers street lights, clinics etc – in effect turning the site solution into a power station as well.

The winners of the AfricaCom Award will be announced at the AfricaCom event in Cape Town, South Africa on November 9. Up to five companies are shortlisted in each of ten categories.

AfricaCom is Africa’s largest annual congress and exhibition and one of the world’s premier communications events, with attendances of more than 4,000 African operators, solutions and technology providers. It takes place in Cape Town, South Africa on 9-10 November 2011.