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The energy subsidiary of China Tower, the world's largest telecommunication tower infrastructure service provider, officially appeared. How to combine the resources of 1.9 million tower sites throughout the country with energy services is full of imagination.

Pengmei News Inquiry on the State Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System found that the Iron Tower Energy Co., Ltd. was registered on June 5, and was 100% owned by China Iron Tower Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Tower, 0788.HK), with a registered capital of 5 billion yuan. Iron Tower Energy Company's business scope includes battery, photovoltaic, wind power, charging pile, energy products, energy system technology development, technical services, technical consultation; battery sales, leasing; software services; vehicle charging sales; power exchange facilities sales; power supply and so on.

According to public information, Liu Guofeng, the first chairman of the tower energy company, was previously the general manager of China's tower operation and maintenance department. China Tower Energy Company has been planning for a long time. In February this year, Liu Guofeng led a team to Xinxiang City, Henan Province, as the head of the preparatory group of China Iron Tower Energy Industry Company, to investigate the development of battery industry.

China Railway Tower is funded by China Mobile Communications Co., Ltd., China Unified Network Communications Co., Ltd., China Telecom Co., Ltd. and China New Holding Co., Ltd. It is mainly engaged in the construction, maintenance and operation of supporting facilities of base stations such as communication tower, public network coverage of high-speed railway and large-scale indoor distribution system. In August 2018, the Chinese Tower was listed on the main board of Hong Kong.

By the end of 2018, the total assets of China's iron towers were 315.36 billion yuan, and the number of stations operated and managed by them reached 1.948 million, covering 31 provinces, municipalities directly under the Central Government and autonomous regions. The number of tenants was 3.09 million, with an average number of station tenants of 1.55.

The above-mentioned base station resources, which are widely distributed and large in number, provide a natural advantage for the tower company to expand its energy business. On the other hand, for the "Big Mac" China Tower, which relies heavily on the three major operators for revenue and has high debts, it is eager to find a new profit model.

At the working meeting of China Tower 2019 held in December last year, Tong Jilu, chairman of the board of directors, Secretary of the Party Committee and general manager of China Tower, put forward when deploying the key tasks of this year, "from traditional site sharing to comprehensive sharing of tower, computer room, transmission, power and social resources", "actively explore and develop comprehensive solutions for reserve power, emergency power generation (charging) and energy storage services, etc. Battery application, strengthen the expansion of the external market, and build the company into a national energy security and power service specialization company.

According to the industry media Southern Energy Watch, at the 2nd Digital China Construction Summit held in Fuzhou, Fujian Province in May this year, the tower energy has appeared as an independent brand, and publicly displayed the information of energy services such as "standby, power generation, power exchange, electricity sale".

According to the aforementioned official introduction materials, the reserve service of tower energy is based on the mature power guarantee scheme of communication base station, utilizing lithium batteries and FSU monitoring products, providing "reserve + monitoring" service scheme for customers with uninterrupted power supply demand, and realizing the extension of reserve power scheme to social sharing service.

Electric power guarantee is one of the mature business of China's iron tower in the field of energy. According to the official network information, at present, all stations with power supporting facilities in China's iron tower have been installed with dynamic ring monitoring, the first time to collect outage information upload operation and maintenance monitoring platform, operation and maintenance monitoring platform according to the engine room (cabinet) battery life, dynamic distribution of power generation work orders. Maintenance personnel in all districts, counties and townships throughout the country respond to the demand for power generation at the first time and ensure uninterrupted power supply for 7*24 hours in the computer room.

According to the exhibition materials, in the field of power generation, Tower Energy puts forward convenient lithium battery packs as carriers, which can quickly respond to the emergency power demand of users, and use unmanned portable lithium batteries to replace manned generators for power generation; and provide fast emergency charging services for new energy vehicles. The power exchange business of Iron Tower Company is based on the standard lithium battery module. It provides power battery power exchange service for low-speed electric vehicles for the riders of logistics and takeout enterprises. According to the exhibition materials, the tower energy will also combine abundant resources of the tower site, use battery energy storage system and new energy system to provide electricity sales service to the outside world.

In the use of power batteries step by step, China Iron Tower Company started its practice several years ago. China's iron tower stopped purchasing lead-acid batteries in 2018 and vigorously promoted the use of lithium batteries. About 120,000 base stations in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across the country have used cascade batteries of about 15 GWh, replacing about 45,000 tons of lead-acid batteries.

The cascade batteries used by the iron tower company are the power batteries for the decommissioning of new energy vehicles. Normally, when the power storage battery capacity of new energy vehicles decreases below 80%, it will not fully meet the power demand of vehicles, but it can still be used in other fields step by step. Last October, China Tower signed a cooperation agreement on power battery recycling with 11 mainstream enterprises of new energy vehicles such as FAW and SAIC.

China Tower has natural advantages in cascade utilization of power batteries, and its communication base station is an ideal application scenario of cascade batteries. Gao Buwen, deputy general manager of China Tower, has said that the total number of batteries in China's base station is more than 40 GWh, and the total number of decommissioned power batteries will be 13.79 GWh by 2020. China Tower can absorb this part of decommissioned batteries. If combined with energy storage, the demand for China's iron towers can absorb 10 million new energy vehicles (resulting in decommissioned power batteries).