Finnish telecoms Elisa has announced in a white paper its intention to enable international telecoms operators to play a key part in tackling climate change by storing their surplus renewable energy and reducing their carbon footprints. Elisa’s approach will also enable telecom operators to develop a new revenue stream through participating in the energy market and optimising their energy purchases, thereby reducing their energy costs.

Entitled ‘DES, good for business, good for the grid, good for the planet’, the paper claims that another 15 GWh in storage capacity for renewables could be deployed at European telecoms operators, using DES to manage energy better.

Key themes in Elisa’s white paper include use of its smart DES management portal to keep battery reserves in sync with the mains power supply. The publication also goes over deploying RAN units as a virtual power plant (VPP), whereby excess energy can in some cases be sold back to national energy grids. Elisa estimates deploying a VPP could save operators 50 percent on power costs, based on average prices in the Nordics and western central Europe.