The Senior Manager of Growth and New Business Tech Platforms at MTN, Chukwuebuka Ezewuzie, said aside from foreign exchange crises, money spent on diesel-powered infrastructure gulped a large chunk of telcos’ operating costs.

“A lot of advancement is going on at the moment in adopting renewable energy because the infrastructure running on diesel and petrol is massively expensive. So, how are we going to use the free energy from the sun and the wind to power this equipment to reduce cost? This is one of the key areas that the telcos are currently exploring,” he asserted.

Telecom infrastructure, such as base stations, data centres, relay stations, and transmission equipment, rely on diesel generators for power, leading to substantial operational costs.

In 2023, telecommunications companies spent about N429.43bn on fuelling those base stations, a 34.57 per cent increase from the N319.11bn spent in 2022, according to analysis from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Currently, the average price of diesel in Nigeria stands at N1,379 per litre, with significant variations across states.

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