Corporate Responsibility

motorola.com

News

See All News Go

About Us
Jump to Performance and Goals

Energy Efficiency and Renewable Sources

We are boosting energy efficiency across our product range and integrating alternative energy into infrastructure deployments, such as base stations that use hydrogen fuel cells and electricity generated by wind and solar energy. Our focus on energy keeps us ahead of market trends and helps our customers and consumers reduce their climate impacts and costs. It provides efficient, low cost and secure energy in many applications and allows networks to be deployed in remote locations with limited connection to the electricity grid.

Integrating alternative energy sources

Fuel cells for backup power on TETRA base stations

Motorola Solutions has deployed the largest-ever number of TETRA base stations using hydrogen fuel cells for backup power. This demonstrates that alternative fuels can be used effectively to support the high reliability demands of public safety networks.

One hundred and seventeen base stations have been deployed to expand SINE, the Motorola Solutions-owned and -operated public safety network in Denmark. The fuel cells, which use hydrogen, provide back-up powers if the mains supply fails — a possibility during large-scale incidents when emergency services communications are vital. The fuel cells replace diesel generators that emit greenhouse gases, take longer to start up, are less reliable and require more maintenance. As well as offering efficiency and reliability, fuel cells also have environmental benefits as they produce little noise, reduce the risk of spills and contamination, and create no local air emissions, only water vapor.

Fuel cells powered by hydrogen produced using renewable energy can help tackle climate change. Presently, most hydrogen is made from fossil fuels, a process that emits greenhouse gases, although infrastructure to produce the fuel from renewable sources is being developed.  When hydrogen is made by electrolyzing water using renewable energy, almost no greenhouse gases are emitted. We believe that this presents an important step in the transition to renewable technologies, and we continue to investigate the additional potential of fuel cell technology.

Read more about how our TETRA technologies are helping customers to cut their carbon emissions.

Wind- and solar-powered radio services for first responders

First responders require cutting-edge communications technology they can rely on in an emergency.

Motorola Solutions was contracted to provide radio services for police, security, fire and ambulance crews serving military bases and a NASA facility located across 3,200 square miles of desert in the U.S. The new system was to consist of ten sites, including one that was particularly inaccessible. Perched on a cliff top about a one-hour drive from the nearest paved road, connecting the remote site to a reliable source of power presented a significant challenge.

Faced with prohibitively high costs to bring power lines to the site, Motorola Solutions drew on its significant experience of powering remote locations using off-grid energy. Four wind turbines and an array of solar panels provide all the system’s power, avoiding the need to build power lines or a road to bring fuel to the site. Independence from the grid means the base station will continue to operate during power outages.  This alternative power system is highly reliable and saves money by lowering future energy costs, as well as eliminating the high price of connecting the site to the grid.

The system has been fully operational for more than a year, helping emergency services do their job with less impact on the environment.

Show all

Performance and goals

Where applicable, all our current external power supplies for mobile computing and automatic data capture devices comply with:

  • U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
  • California's appliance efficiency regulations
  • Australian and New Zealand energy performance requirements for external power supplies
  • South Korea MEPS regulation
  • European Commission (No 278/2009) energy performance requirements for external power supplies (level IV)

The power supplies for the majority of our mobile computers meet the European Union’s Level V efficiency standards.

We are working to approve Level V efficient external power supplies throughout our entire portfolio.

We ship all of our products for the enterprise with energy-saving settings enabled.

Super-efficient batteries

Our super-efficient, lithium-based batteries allow the use of almost 100 percent of the available energy. They also never need to be reconditioned or recalibrated—meaning energy isn’t wasted in maintenance.

Programmable features save power

Our products’ programmable features like standby mode, low-rate polling, “face-down” modes (see below) and variable backlighting save battery power and keep the device operating longer between charges, and our System Development Software Kits provide energy-saving recommendations.

Energy innovation in handheld computers

Our MC95 handheld computer features technology that turns off the screen backlight when the device is placed face down. The face-down feature is an example of how Motorola Solutions is innovating to bring energy savings to our customers without compromising the functionality of our devices.

Radio solutions

Our radio chargers consume 40 percent less energy in standby mode than is required by the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and minimize unnecessary charging by recognizing a battery’s previous state of charge.

Our radio equipment helps first responders to stay on patrol longer and return to base less often, saving emissions and fuel. For example, our "mobile office" in-car workstations allow users to submit reports securely without returning to the station. Our radio systems also can be reprogrammed over the air and, if there is a fault with the equipment, we often can remotely diagnose and fix the problem.

We have developed a multi-unit charger to enable customers using a number of radios to save money, energy and CO2. Compared with using six single chargers, the new multi-unit charger saves $50 in energy costs a year and 0.3 tonnes of CO2.

Greener TETRA networks

We are helping our customers to cut their environmental impacts and costs through more efficient TETRA public safety radio networks.

Our new MTS base stations are highly efficient, bringing huge energy and cost savings for carriers upgrading their networks. When operating 500 sites, a carrier could save around $200,000 each year and cut energy use by around a quarter compared with using earlier generation EBTS or MBTS base stations. Our MTS1 TETRA Enhanced Data Service base station consumes less power than a 100 watt lightbulb.

The Motorola Solutions TETRA team is currently working on technology to enable some of the base radios to be switched off when not in use, which will bring further energy savings to the MTS range.

Our new Dimetra IP 7.x HW TETRA network enables customers to operate more channels with less energy. The network uses IP over Ethernet technology to provide almost twice the number of voice calls for 40 to 50 percent less energy, compared with Dimetra IP 5.x HW. networks.

Tools