Ericsson already has an environmental winner with their Tower Tube Cell Towers (which use 40% less energy than traditional towers), but they’ve taken the idea one step further with the integration of a vertical-axis turbine.
The wind-powered version comes with a four-blade turbine with five-meter blades. The vertical advantage allows the blades to turn around the tower resulting in less noise and less visual impact than typical wind turbines. Ulf Ewaldsson, Vice President and Head of Product Area Radio at Ericsson, says: “Combining wind power with Ericsson’s Tower Tube brings further opportunities to support mobile communication in both urban and remote areas with no or limited access to the electricity grid. Ericsson’s wind-powered Tower Tube research initiative reflects our ambition to use our technical leadership to drive sustainable, telecom expansion and deliver communication for all.”
Very cool — and it’s great to see Ericsson working hard to combine different elements of sustainable tech with their towers. The addition of the vertical-axis turbine is still in the trial stages, so stay tuned to see how quickly these come to market.
Check out the full press release here.
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[...] up there?” In fact, earlier last year, Ericsson unveiled the first-ever cell phone tower with a vertical-axis wind turbine integrated. If we can do it in cell phone towers, why not transmission [...]