Tranos, Nigeria’s enclosure manufacturing firm, has collaborated with Toyota Motors to manufacture generators that run on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) for telecoms companies to power their base stations across Nigeria. The move became necessary to combat the theft of diesel, a common product that is easily stolen, at communication mast sites.
Jude Abalaka, managing director, Tranos, announced this development in Lagos, recently.
According to Abalaka, with regards to the security of telecoms equipment at their over 20,000 base stations across the country, Tranos has come up with innovations that will solve the theft challenges.
It has been observed that the items mostly stolen at the communication sites were diesel and batteries.
To address the diesel issues, Tranos introduced generating sets that run on LPG, which would eliminate the use of diesel completely. Second stage of the innovation was ongoing and full production was expected in Q3, 2019.
Partnering with Toyota in this regard, Tranos had ordered for the first set of production engines from Toyota.
In respect to batteries, Tranos said it was designing battery cabinets that would include some security features that would make it difficult for anyone to steal the items.
This technology would replace what is being currently used where huge pillars and bars were built around batteries to protect them.
With this technology, stealing batteries at telecom sites would be greatly minimised, if not completely eliminated.
“We became aware that the telecoms operators were having certain challenges around their mast sites. So we decided to design a product that will address those challenges,” he said.
By this development, telecom companies would not have to incur losses arising from the stealing of diesels at their various sites across the country.
“With this, people can no longer bring jerry can in and steal gas the way they steal diesel,” he assured.
For the past four years, Tranos has been making products for the telecom companies to address those challenges. Currently, about 12 percent of telecom sites in Nigeria are being run on generating sets from Tranos Company.
At the moment, there are three of LPG generating sets currently running on different sites to test-run the efficacy of the products. If test proves successful, Abalaka hoped that in the nearest future, those running on LPG would replace all the diesel engines running at various telecom sites.
