Indus Towers has installed solar systems at 50,000 telecom sites, adding 300 MW of capacity. The company plans to double this count by FY29 to cut costs and diesel use. "We have saved about 8 to 10% cost per kilowatt in our ecosystem," said managing director Prachur Sah regarding the initiative.
Indus Towers has installed solar systems at 50,000 telecom sites, adding around 300 MW of capacity, and aims to double the number by FY29. The company says the initiative, combined with battery storage and energy-management systems, has helped cut energy costs by 8-10% per kilowatt and reduce diesel consumption.
New Delhi: Passive telecom infrastructure provider Indus Towers has installed solar systems at 50,000 telecom sites across India, adding about 300 MW of capacity.
The company aims to extend solar installations to 100,000 sites by FY29 to lower energy costs, reduce dependence on diesel and cut emissions.
"We have saved about 8 to 10% cost per kilowatt in our ecosystem," Prachur Sah, managing director and chief executive of Indus Towers, told ET.
The 50,000 solar-powered sites represent about 18.5% of Indus Towers' total network of 270,480 towers as of September 2026, indicating the scale of the company's ongoing energy transition.
However, the savings are not attributable to solar alone. Indus has combined solar installations with high-capacity lithium-ion batteries, digital energy management systems and smart meters to optimise electricity consumption across its network.
The company has also reduced
diesel consumption by almost 11% in the first half of FY27 compared with the year-ago period, Sah said, despite the operational challenges posed by the monsoon, weather disturbances and electricity shutdowns.
Indus, which operates one of India's largest passive telecom infrastructure networks, consumes significant amounts of electricity and diesel to keep its towers running. The company accelerated its solar deployment programme in 2024, seeking to make
renewable energy commercially viable across its widely distributed sites.
The business case is driven by the cost differential between
solar power and conventional energy sources, rather than sustainability commitments alone. Solar installations also improve network availability by allowing sites to generate electricity during grid outages, reducing dependence on diesel generators.
"The capex for a solar site is probably similar to or slightly more expensive than the rooftop solar that you put on a house," Sah said, adding that the investment makes commercial sense in the longer run for both the company and its customers. "We get returns on our investment, and the customer gets the savings on energy."
The company is now targeting 100,000 solar-equipped sites, although geographical constraints such as building shadows and tree cover can limit installations in densely populated areas, said Sah.
Its deployments are spread across states, including Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Sah said some sites in Jammu and Kashmir operate using only solar energy and battery storage.
The initiative could also feed into Indus' overseas ambitions. Indus Towers, which began generating revenue from initial tower deployments in Zambia and Uganda, sees its energy-management capabilities as a potential cost differentiator in Africa, where electricity supply constraints and diesel transportation costs make tower operations expensive.
"Energy is a problem everywhere," Sah said, adding that the company's engineering and energy-management capabilities would be leveraged in its African operations as well.