Emission inventory of greenhouse gases and sustainable energy for mobile telecommunication facilities in Nigeria

The annual emission rates of three key greenhouse gases and their total carbon dioxide equivalents were determined for the operation of several thousands of diesel fueled electric power generators deployed across the base transceiver stations (BTS) of telecommunication industries in Nigeria. Emission inventory technique was adopted for the determination of annual emission rates of individual greenhouse gas while and global warming potentials were used to convert these emissions to carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e). Results showed that the annual levels of N20, CH4 and CO2 which were 242.88 ton/year, 80.76 ton/year and 1617 kton/year, respectively in 2012 rose to 317.42 ton/year, 105.54 ton/year and 2113 kton/year in 2014. By the end of 2020, these had risen to 561.97 ton/year, 186.86 ton/year, and 3741 kton/year, respectively. The total GHG emission rose from 1.7 × 106 tCO2e in 2012 to 2.2 × 106 tCO2e in 2014 and by 2020 it had reached 3.9 × 106 tCO2e. Going by the projected 80,000 diesel fueled electric power generators, the total emission rate of the three GHGs (tCO2 eq) is expected to hit 5.8 × 106 tCO2e in the nearest future. Considering the implications of these on the global climate, the deployment of hybrid renewable energy sources is considered necessary as against burning of diesel