Italian-based COELMO has designed and manufactured diesel gensets since 1946. COELMO has provided reliable power for telecom networks for decades all over the world, as well as supporting the oil & gas, military, humanitarian, leisure, commercial and marine sectors.’With 70 years of experience and several projects successfully completed, COELMO is able to provide engineering, project management, installation, testing, commissioning, maintenance and technical assistance of Generating Sets worldwide. TowerXchange spoke with Eng. Antonio Prigiobbo, Telecom BU Manager’at COELMO spa to discuss COELMO’s origin, business history and how they are producing generators suitable for the telecom industry.
TowerXchange:’Please introduce your company ’ where do you fit in the telecoms infrastructure ecosystem?
Eng. Antonio Prigiobbo, Telecom BU Manager, COELMO spa: COELMO spa is among the oldest gensets manufacturers with an experience of more than 70 years, not only in production but also in the design of special solutions for the telecom market for both’BTS’sites’and’data centre applications.
TowerXchange:’The first question our readers will want to know is ’how proven is the solution in the field’ ’ please tell us about the performance of your solution in the field ’ who is using it and what results have been achieved?
Eng. Antonio Prigiobbo, Telecom BU Manager, COELMO spa: COELMO products are installed around the world by the’largest’international MNOs.’We supply’thousands’of units per year in Europe, Africa and Asia.’ Companies’such as Ooredoo, Orange, Etisalat, Zain, TIM, STC, Ethiotelecom use our gensets together with OEMs, ZTE, Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson’and towercos including’IHS Towers, Bharti Infratel and American Tower, all of whom’trust the reliability of our solutions.
TowerXchange:’Tell us about the range of gensets you provide ’ KVA, AC or DC, variable speed et cetera.
Eng. Antonio Prigiobbo, Telecom BU Manager, COELMO spa: COELMO’s product portfolio ranges from 3 to 4,000 kVA,’with the possibility of providing’different’engine’brands’with different cooling systems’and emission levels.
Beside the traditional AC solution in both standard and dual configuration’for BTS sites, COELMO recently renewed the DC variable speed proposal, with a range going from 4kW to 30kW, matching market requirements. The latter provides a good solution which can be integrated in hybrid systems including renewable.’For larger power applications, COELMO designs and manufactures Tier V Uptime Datacentres Backup Generating Sets.
TowerXchange:’What’s the sweet spot for your solutions in terms of grid availability and the load your solutions can support?
Eng. Antonio Prigiobbo, Telecom BU Manager, COELMO spa: COELMO Generating Sets are suitable for any kind of load including on-grid, bad-grid and off-grid sites. Dummy loads can be also integrated in our units so that large reductions of the load’can be easily managed in very short time.
TowerXchange:’How has your solution been designed to maximise autonomy and minimise the number of site visits required?
Eng. Antonio Prigiobbo, Telecom BU Manager, COELMO spa: For the traditional AC Generating Sets, our’solution’is customisable’with integrated fuel tanks’with a capacity of’thousands of litres depending on the required autonomy.’In addition, together with engine manufacturers we developed specific long-term maintenance kits to extend the duration of maintenance. With DC solutions, it is possible to configure the site as hybrid with the addition of battery banks, which allows to keep the engine running for 6-8 hours per day or even less with the addition of a renewable energy source.
TowerXchange:’How is your solution scalable to accommodate the increasing power requirements as multiple tenants are added to a site?
Eng. Antonio Prigiobbo, Telecom BU Manager, COELMO spa: Should the site require more power than the one available from existing AC gensets, COELMO can easily manage the addition of another unit with synchronisation capabilities. For DC solutions, the increased power requirement can be managed by adding an additional battery bank, increasing the working hours of the generator or by adding a renewable source of power.
TowerXchange:’How does your solution integrate with renewable generation and energy storage solutions?
Eng. Antonio Prigiobbo, Telecom BU Manager, COELMO spa: The flexibility of our products allows the integration with the most common storage systems and of course our proposal for the’hybridisation of powering the site can easily accommodate’solar PV panels. In addition, our newly designed control board can manage all these components giving a complete view of the entire system.
TowerXchange:’How has your solution been ’hardened’ to protect against fuel and equipment theft?
Eng. Antonio Prigiobbo, Telecom BU Manager, COELMO spa: We have a variety of different solutions that can be implemented, starting with special alarms up to armoured hardware. We also integrate cameras to monitor sites.
TowerXchange:’Please sum up how you would differentiate your solution from your competitors’?
Eng. Antonio Prigiobbo, Telecom BU Manager, COELMO spa: The continuous improvement of products and the high level of the engineering expertise are the strength of COELMO. We are able to provide the best solution for a market which is continually evolving and whose requirements in terms of reliability, flexibility and reduced operating costs are more and more stringent. COELMO’s solutions are tested and widely implemented across many vertical markets - this is why our customers define COELMO products as highly reliable.
