scope:

Due to new power and energy context such as greenhouse effect and other environmental issues, fuel depletion and electricity cost increase, new regulation and standards, telecom operators have to make efforts to use alternatives. The present document covers alternative energy sources completed by current and new energy storage that can be used in ICT. Such alternative energy sources are:

• fuel cells;

• photovoltaic generators;

• wind turbine generators;

• micro hydro generators;

• stirling machine;

• alternative cooling sources, e.g. geo-cooling, fresh air cooling (or free cooling), absorption machines.

It proposes an overview of practical solutions for power and cooling systems using alternative energy sources. Interoperability of heterogeneous alternative energy sources is the key issue. Hybrid systems reliability and efficiency is also in the scope of the present document.

Bearing in mind the availability and the maintainability of the power plants for TLC, the present document considers:

• the principle of energy converters operating from alternative energy sources;

• the minimum set of information on energy converters;

• the main sizing parameters;

• the architecture of the power systems using the energy converters either only one type or as a combination of two or more such devices;

• existing and new energy storage;

• cooling solutions from alternative sources (geo-cooling).

New (not traditional) solutions for cooling will be proposed and expanded in a separate document.