Last year Spain and Portugal suffered massive power outages: this partnership with energy optimisation firm Gridle looks to secure greater resilience, value and sustainability
Vantage Towers, which was spun out of Vodafone and is one of Europe’s leading towercos, and Gridle are collaborating to strengthen the resilience, value and sustainability of Vantage Towers’ infrastructure in Spain. Gridle is part of Elisa Industriq’s energy optimization business.
An initial deployment of a virtual power plant at selected radio base station sites where AI-powered Gridle will optimise Vantage Towers’ battery systems. Gridle was developed to optimise Elisa’s own fleet of batteries across Finland and Estonia.
Now other telecom companies, such as DNA Towers Finland (part of Telenor Group), use the service to optimise charging, reduce emissions and participate more efficiently in energy markets.
Gridle charges batteries during low cost, low emission periods, discharges them during price peaks, and trades available capacity in balancing and wholesale electricity markets. These practices reduce energy costs and carbon emissions, contribute to the communications and energy networks’ resilience and unlock new revenue opportunities.
Nicolas Mahler, Interim CEO and CFO, Vantage Towers, commented, “In moments when storms, power cuts and hybrid threats challenge the resilience of communications networks, it becomes our duty as an industry to explore all avenues that can help strengthen continuity of service. Through this collaboration, we contribute technologies that support operators in keeping networks running not only for hours, but for days when circumstances demand it.”
Jukka-Pekka Salmenkaita, Managing Director of Gridle and VP of AI at Elisa, added, “Batteries are essential in protecting nationally critical telecom infrastructure. The blackout in Spain and Portugal last year reminded us how quickly society is disrupted when networks go down. We are pleased to collaborate with Vantage Towers to demonstrate how battery investments can turn resilience into operational excellence and financial gains when managed with intelligent systems like Gridle.”
