Australia’s first energy efficiency training program for the mobile network industry to help reduce carbon pollution and electricity costs was launched in Sydney this week.

The online energy efficiency training program and best practice guide is being led by the Mobile Carriers Forum (MCF), a division of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA), in partnership with national climate change consultancy Energetics and the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water NSW (DECCW).

$96,000 funding for the training project has been provided through NSW Government’s Energy Efficiency Training Program and the project is supported by member network carriers Optus, Telstra and Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA).

The training will be directed to key roles, including project managers, design engineers and life cycle managers to increase their awareness and knowledge around energy use.

The training program will support a cultural and systemic shift, focused on changing work practices and behaviour for technical staff in the area of Radio Access Networks, which can contribute up to 93 percent of some mobile carriers’ total energy consumption.

Around 250 employees from mobile carriers Optus, Telstra and VHA based in NSW, where more than 30 per cent of Australia’s 17,000 mobile telecommunications network facilities are located, will be among the first to benefit from the training resource.

MCF Project Manager Matt Evans said the training program will be piloted in NSW later this year and will become a vital resource for all mobile network carriers across Australia, if energy efficiency measures are to be incorporated into universal management systems.

“We are focused on developing an industry approach to address the significant amount of total network operator energy use for mobile network carriers, contributing to a sustainable and environmentally responsible industry,” he said.

“Following the pilot, the NSW-initiated program is expected to be delivered to mobile network deployment teams across Australia through an online training tool.”

Optus, Telstra and VHA will contribute to the content of the online training modules and the best practice guide that will be developed and implemented based on business drivers related to environmental issues and operational costs.

“While increasing employees’ awareness of energy efficiency, the training program will also include practical opportunities during the design stage on RAN components and provide decision frameworks around these,” Mr Evans said.

“The best practice guide will be developed for energy efficiency in design, procurement and maintenance activities within RAN such as free cooling capabilities in Base Transceiver Stations, efficiency improvements of air-conditioning systems, control, hardware and planning options, and alternative energy sources.”

Access to the learning material from the pilot will be made available on the MCF’s website later in 2010.

The collaborative effort of Optus, Telstra and VHA, via the MCF, has already been established through the funding submission to DECCW.

“Our members have shown great commitment to working together to create the first training based initiative for the mobile telecommunications industry for energy efficient network design,” Mr Evans said.

“We thank the Department of Environmental Climate Change and Water NSW for showing its support of this project by providing funding through the Energy Efficiency Training Program, part of the NSW Government’s $150 million Energy Efficiency Strategy.”

AMTA/MCF is committed to promoting an environmentally responsible and sustainable mobile telecommunications industry.

It does this through promoting improvements in energy efficiency, which this initiative addresses, and also by reducing waste and promoting recycling. MobileMuster is the industry’s official recycling program. It is the only industry-wide program for electronic waste offering free recycling for all mobile brands in Australia. More than 90% of materials in mobiles, batteries and accessories can be recovered. Recycling mobile phone materials avoids between 60 and 90 per cent of greenhouse gases that would normally be emitted when making these items from new materials.