NEWS
24
2026
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07
From Diesel Generator to Solar+Storage: The Energy Revolution of a Telecom Base Station in Africa
In a remote region of Somaliland, East Africa, a solitary telecom base station stands on the arid red earth. This station provides the only mobile signal for dozens of surrounding villages - for local residents, it is their sole link to the outside world.
In a remote region of Somaliland, East Africa, a solitary telecom base station stands on the arid red earth. This station provides the only mobile signal for dozens of surrounding villages - for local residents, it is their sole link to the outside world. But for the operator, Somalicom, this base station had been a "cost black hole" for years. In early 2024, they made a decision - to completely transform the station's power supply with a full solar-plus-storage system.
Ahmed, the Network Operations Manager, has worked in Somaliland's telecommunications sector for twelve years. The base stations under his management span a vast area from the coast to the interior - and the hardest ones to maintain are those in remote inland locations, entirely off the grid.
"This station is nearly 40 kilometres from the nearest paved road," says Ahmed, "and the last stretch is impassable during the rainy season - it's all red mud, and trucks get stuck as soon as they go in."
The station had been powered entirely by a diesel generator. Diesel had to be trucked from the port city of Berbera to the nearest supply point, then ferried by small van - or even camel - to the station. The final cost per litre of diesel was five to six times the city price. Even worse, the generator required regular maintenance - oil changes every 500 hours, filter replacements every 1,000 hours, and major overhauls every 2,000 hours. And every technician visit to the site was a two-day expedition.
"We ran the numbers," says Ahmed. "Just the diesel and generator maintenance for this one base station were costing us nearly $35,000 a year. And the generator breaks down often. Once it fails, from reporting the fault to repairing it, the quickest turnaround is three days. During those three days, people within a radius of dozens of kilometres have no signal."
The worst failure occurred in July 2023. A generator that had run for nearly 8,000 hours was completely written off. Ordering a replacement and getting it to the site took two full weeks. For those two weeks, local residents could not make phone calls, access the internet, send or receive text messages - or even make emergency calls.
"At that moment, I realised we had to think differently," says Ahmed.
"I needed a system I could see from afar."
Ahmed began researching alternatives. The idea of solar plus storage wasn't new - but the problem was that most solutions on the market were designed for urban homes, nowhere near tough enough for remote base stations.
"What I needed was a system that could run stably at 50°C, a system that required minimal maintenance, and - most importantly - a system that would let me see real-time data from my office hundreds of kilometres away."
Then, at an industry conference, he heard about Victron Energy's applications in off-grid telecom base stations across Africa. A colleague from Kenya shared his experience building off-grid station power systems with Victron equipment - modular design, remote monitoring, and seamless integration with third-party lithium batteries. Ahmed immediately contacted the system integrator.
"Victron's modular design means we can start with a baseline configuration and optimise it step by step based on actual operating data," says Ahmed. "And Wysher's 48V 150Ah telecom-grade LiFePO₄ batteries support CAN-bus communication, integrating perfectly with Victron's Cerbo GX controller - which means I can see, from my office hundreds of kilometres away, the status of every single battery, the output of every solar panel, and every detail of the entire system in real time."
The Final System Configuration
After multiple discussions with the system integrator - taking into account the base station's load profile (approximately 1.2kW of continuous telecom equipment load, plus occasional peak loads) and local solar irradiation - Ahmed finalised a "high-redundancy, fully monitored" setup:
Component | Model | Qty |
Storage batteries | Wysher Auran 48160 AP R LiFePO₄ | 4 (parallel) |
Inverter/charger | Victron Quattro 48/5000/70-100 | 1 |
Solar charge controllers | Victron SmartSolar MPPT 250/100 | 2 |
System controller | Victron Cerbo GX | 1 |
PV system | 60 × 455W monocrystalline panels | - |
Backup generator | Existing diesel generator | 1 |
Monitoring display | GX Touch 50 | 1 |
(Note: The above reflects the actual Somalicom base station setup. The system provides 3 days of autonomy without sunshine. Wysher's telecom-grade batteries are modular and support parallel expansion for future load growth. The Quattro's dual AC inputs allow simultaneous connection to the generator and a future second backup source.)
The 60 PV panels were installed on a cleared plot next to the base station - the installation team first levelled the ground with a bulldozer, poured concrete foundations, and then mounted the panels on steel racks at a height of 1.5 metres above the ground - this both protected them from standing water during the rainy season and reduced dust accumulation.
The four Wysher 48V 150Ah batteries were installed in a dedicated cabinet inside the station's equipment room. Each battery features a standard 19-inch rack-mount design; the four units sit side-by-side in a 4U rack, occupying less than 0.5 square metres of floor space. The parallel connection between batteries uses dedicated communication and power cables - CAN-bus synchronises the BMS data from all four batteries to the Cerbo GX controller.
The Victron Quattro 48/5000 is mounted on the distribution board next to the battery cabinet. Its first AC input connects to the existing diesel generator (via an automatic transfer switch), and its second AC input is reserved for future grid connection. The AC output feeds directly into the station's telecom equipment distribution panel - delivering clean 230V AC power to the BTS (Base Transceiver Station), transmission equipment, and monitoring systems.
The Cerbo GX controller connects via VE.Bus to the Quattro, via VE.Direct to the two SmartSolar MPPT controllers, and via CAN-bus to the Wysher batteries' BMS.
Ahmed opens the VRM portal from his office in Berbera and sees the base station's real-time data: PV generation power, battery SOC, load power, system temperature - everything at his fingertips.
In July 2024, a severe sandstorm hit the interior of Somaliland, lasting three days. Visibility dropped to less than 50 metres, and PV output plummeted to just 15% of normal levels.
But the base station never went down. The four Wysher batteries had been fully charged before the storm hit - 28.8kWh of storage was enough to power the station for nearly three days. On the second day of the storm, the battery SOC dropped to 35%, and the Cerbo GX automatically started the diesel generator. The generator ran for about four hours, recharging the batteries to 65% before automatically shutting down. On the third day after the storm passed, sunshine returned, and the PV system quickly topped up the batteries.
Throughout the entire event, the base station's telecom service did not interrupt for a single second.
"Before, in this kind of weather, the generator would have shut down because the air filter was clogged with sand," says Ahmed. "Now, I sit in my office watching VRM and I know everything is fine. That feeling is hard to put into words."
From a "cost black hole" that relied on diesel delivered by helicopter, to a green signal tower powered by solar generation and battery storage - the transformation of this base station is now being replicated at more remote sites across the region.
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