Energy & Sustainability

Mobile Energy Association Launches

The inaugural meeting of the Mobile Energy Association took place this week at TM Forum Live in Nice, France. The association aims to increase collaboration between the telecoms and energy sectors.

The founders believe that significant benefits for both industries can accrue to consumers in both developing and developed markets through improved cooperation, transfer of technologies and ideas and mobilising of resources.

Founded by Jason Simpson with the support of Guy Bartlett of Utility Partnership Ltd. and Colin Orviss of Parhelion GCA, the Mobile Energy Association will be headquartered in Monaco. The principality has a supportive stance on carbon emissions and international development which chimes well with the Association’s goals.

These include facilitating collaboration between the telecoms and energy sectors, providing a platform for integrated innovation, applying existing solutions to social challenges, and enabling the smart grid sooner. Within this edict, specific areas of focus will include Pay As You Go Energy, low cost metering, renewable off-grid base station generation and asset management processes and systems.

“We believe that the two sectors are increasingly facing the same challenges such as regulation, evolving customer expectations, new forms of competition, and disruptive technology” says founder Jason Simpson. “Many of these challenges can be resolved by the cross-sector transfer or integration of existing capabilities, services and technologies.”

“With each others’ help and know-how there is still the opportunity to pro-actively define the landscape of our markets and how we will position ourselves as leaders. Without this collaboration there is a significant chance that we will be forced to adopt a defensive strategy fighting a losing battle against new entrants, over-the-top players and disruptive technologies”, he continues.

“In a nutshell we believe that there are some significant short and mid-term benefits to be gained from the telecoms and energy sectors pro-actively working together in a co-ordinated manner”, concludes Simpson.

Around 40 delegates participated in the meeting - significantly more than had been anticipated. Delegates were mainly from the telecom sector including vendors and network operators / service providers. Discussion focused on the need to break down the ‘cultural’ barriers between the energy and telco sectors with participants keen to see practical solutions in areas such as off-grid power for emerging markets.

In its first 12 months, the Association aims to create momentum and visibility via partnerships and dialogue with organisations. Several such partnerships are already underway with various mobile operators and utilities firms, as well as organisations such as TMForum, GSMA, Climate Group, and Accenture Development Partnerships.

Within the 12-24 month time frame the focus will evolve to making concrete progress on a number of specific issues that will contribute to enabling the smart grid sooner and applying existing solutions to social challenges both very relevant for developed and developing markets alike.



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