Asia-Pacific asks ITU to pair telecom sites with clean power

The Cell Tower Has a New Neighbour: Its Power Supply

Why it matters

Asia-Pacific has offered the ITU a deceptively practical climate instruction: put clean generation where the network can use it.

Daniel Kade26 October 2026 at 04:12 UTCReading Time 2 minLast update: 26 October 2026

Asia-Pacific proposes that ITU invite co-location of telecom facilities and clean-energy sources.

Summary

Asia-Pacific proposes that ITU Resolution 182 invite governments and industry to consider putting telecom infrastructure beside clean-energy sources, so more power can be used locally.
The 2022 resolution already promoted renewables. The new proposal names the physical placement of supply and network equipment.

A mobile tower can have a fine sustainability report and still buy its electricity from far away. The Asia-Pacific Telecommunity's addendum 15 proposes a more literal arrangement: put telecommunications infrastructure with clean-energy sources and use the power locally. Its proposed addition to ITU Resolution 182 invites Member States, Sector Members and Associates to consider co-location to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The ITU register lists the document for the Doha plenipotentiary meeting.

The change is small enough to hide in a long climate resolution. The adopted 2022 text already encouraged efficient energy supply and greater use of renewables. APT now points to the map: where is the source, where is the load, and can they share a site? The invitation addresses site planning. It supplies no construction order or emissions estimate.

ITU has documented what such proximity can look like. Recommendation L.1211 describes panels on a base-station roof, in nearby open space or on a tower. Its non-normative appendix reports one Jiangsu site where a 3.3 kWp photovoltaic installation produced 3,352 kWh from September 2022 through August 2023, supplying 12% of that site's electricity. That is one installation's result. The same document describes shade, battery control and the problem of feeding a live site from grid and solar at once.

The proposal brings those unglamorous choices into a diplomatic text. The next decision is whether Doha keeps the co-location sentence. The decisions after that belong to site owners, operators and national authorities: room for panels, a suitable power connection, storage and backup arrangements. A resolution can point to the neighbour; someone still has to build the wire.