08 October 2024

Andrew Schafer, CEO, PowerX

Earlier this year, we reported on the transformative results of a year-long strategic collaboration with Phil-Tower Consortium Inc. (PhilTower). The Philippines’ leading tower company appointed us in 2023 and has since extended the project from an initial 1,350 sites to 3,500 sites. PhilTower was eager to adopt innovative new technologies to digitise their infrastructure from day one and drive significant savings on capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx), enhance operational efficiencies, and achieve significant cuts in energy consumption across the entire PhilTower network. We were ready to help achieve these ambitious goals.

It’s been six months now since PhilTower began leveraging our advanced AI-driven data intelligence. In that time, it has successfully identified and eliminated diesel generators (DG) at 50% of its locations, transitioning to battery backup systems, yielding almost $500,000 in generator OpEx savings – as well as reducing annual CO2 emissions by more than 700 tons. The streamlined operations, enabled by reduced DG usage and full visibility into the tower estate, have lowered maintenance costs, decreased Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) by 30%, and increased network availability to 99.98%. This has boosted telecom customer data usage and revenue while reducing annual OpEx by an additional $500,000 in fuel savings – a huge win for our customer.

Justin Head, co-founder and executive vice-chairman at PowerX, and Devid Gubiani, CEO at PhilTower

In addition, new comprehensive battery health assessments and targeted investments of over $2.8 million into battery replacements and upgrades, enabled by PowerX, are expected to optimise backup capabilities while right- sizing CapEx. Throughout, we’ve helped automate reporting and decision-making processes, further reducing operational workloads, and improving the efficiency of alarm and trouble ticket management through closed-loop operational workflows – significantly reducing the need for human intervention. And this is just the beginning. Looking to the future, PhilTower plans to continue its modernisation journey with initiatives including hybrid power installations, solar energy integration, cooling optimisations, and power system consolidations. Armed with critical insights into the health status of its network and energy growth projections, we expect that

PhilTower will save more than $1.5 million in the coming year and reduce CO2 emissions by nearly 10,000 tons annually - reinforcing its commitment to sustainable, efficient, and cost- effective tower operations. Furthermore, these initiatives are extended with an additional 2,000 towers across the region as PhilTower completed its anticipated merger with Miescor Infrastructure Development Corporation (MIDC), bringing the estate to a total of 3,500 optimised towers. Of course, applying data science tools and optimisations to more than 1,000 sites within just six months is no mean feat.

However, PhilTower’s commitment to digitalisation has transformed its network, enabling rapid sale and leaseback transitioning, full remote asset visibility, efficient operations, and data-driven decisions that optimise CapEx and OpEx. And it’s good news for customers too, with PhilTower passing on those significant savings to consumers while increasing uptime by three hours per site per month. With our platform, PhilTower has the tools to maximise asset leverage and drive revenue, creating a truly 21st-century tower network with next-generation maintenance and proactive energy efficiency plans. Indeed, the tower company has managed to optimise its distributed assets using a range of KPIs and has set ambitious targets to deliver substantial growth and value to stakeholders, including unparalleled service to mobile operators and ambitious carbon reduction initiatives.

All in all, we are delighted that PhilTower is seeing immediate and strategic benefits from the data-driven optimisations and automation provided by our platform. This collaboration highlights our pioneering role in leveraging deep data analytics, AI, and machine learning to deliver outstanding network efficiency. The PowerX platform has empowered PhilTower’s teams to drive operational excellence, enhancing asset and energy performance and integrating data intelligence for future energy programs. Together, we are raising the bar, setting a new standard for network intelligence and site efficiency in the Philippines.