DNA Tower Becomes World’s First Tower Company to Offer Battery Capacity in Electricity Reserve Markets with Elisa DES

DNA Tower Finland, a Telenor Towers company, has successfully connected base station batteries to the Finnish electricity reserve market using Elisa Industriq’s AI-based Distributed Energy Storage (DES) solution. DNA Tower Finland is the world’s first tower company whose base station batteries help to balance the national electricity grid with Elisa DES.

DNA Tower Finland has taken a significant step towards a greener, profitable energy future by starting to optimize the batteries in its equipment rooms with Elisa DES, as announced last year. DNA Tower Finland’s base station batteries are now connected to the solution, and the battery capacity is being made available to the Finnish electricity reserve markets, maintained by Fingrid.

With the AI-powered solution, DNA Tower Finland gains significant benefits from grid-balancing services in the reserve markets. Elisa DES also optimizes the electricity consumption of base stations by utilizing affordable green energy, achieving substantial savings as well as environmental benefits. DNA Tower Finland has acquired lithium batteries for its base stations, which utilize DES solution and ensure that the base stations will remain operational for significantly longer periods during power outages.

“We will be connecting hundreds of base station equipment rooms to the electricity balancing markets. The aim is to expand the service to cover most of our tower sites. This is a significant step towards improving our energy efficiency. At the same time, we achieve both economic and sustainability benefits, as we participate in electricity reserve markets to generate a new revenue stream” says Antti Koskinen, CEO of DNA Tower Finland.

Elisa initially implemented the DES solution in its own base stations three years ago. The revenues and savings that the solution generates cover up to half of the electricity costs of Elisa’s base stations. Elisa Industriq is offering the solution to other European telecom operators and tower companies, and DNA Tower Finland is the first tower company to fully implement the service.

“DNA Tower Finland has been a pioneering tower company in choosing to adopt Elisa DES solution and create new value with their site infrastructure. This marks a significant development in a way that telecom operators can monetize their battery storage. Together, we are also bolstering Finland’s national resilience and advancing the green energy transition,” says Jukka-Pekka Salmenkaita, VP for AI and Special Projects at Elisa Industriq.