Edotco Bangladesh will convert decommissioned telecom site batteries into Instant Power Supply (IPS) units under a partnership with sustainable transport company Tiger New Energy, targeting the country's chronic grid-outage problem.

The agreement, announced this week, gives end-of-life tower batteries a second deployment as off-grid backup systems used by Bangladeshi households and small businesses when the main utility supply fails. Edotco Bangladesh, the local unit of Malaysia-headquartered tower services group Edotco, framed the scheme as a way to address two pressures at once: rising volumes of spent lithium-ion and lead-acid cells from its network and demand for affordable backup power outside Dhaka and other grid-constrained districts.

What is Edotco actually doing with the batteries?

Under the partnership, used telecom batteries removed from Edotco Bangladesh's tower sites are to be processed and rebuilt into IPS units. Tiger New Energy, which describes itself as a pioneer in sustainable transportation, will handle the conversion work. The resulting systems are intended to provide backup power during the load-shedding episodes that routinely interrupt supply for residential and small commercial customers across Bangladesh.

The companies have not disclosed the number of batteries earmarked for the first phase, the capacity rating of the rebuilt IPS units, or the rollout schedule by district. Edotco Bangladesh also has not said whether the programme covers both lithium-ion and legacy lead-acid cells pulled from its macro sites in Bangladesh.

Why does battery reuse matter for tower operators?

Spent batteries are an escalating cost and compliance issue for tower operators across South Asia. Edotco and its peers run their sites on multi-hour backup banks sized to keep radios, cooling and transmission links alive through grid outages, meaning cell degradation is constant and replacement cycles are short. Edotco Group operates roughly 50,000 tower sites across its footprint, according to company disclosures, with thousands of those in Bangladesh.

Diverting those cells into a second-use market reduces the volume of waste the operator must dispose of under Bangladesh's hazardous-materials rules and creates a new revenue line if the IPS units are sold or leased. For Tiger New Energy, the scheme extends a business model it has already applied to electric rickshaws and other urban mobility projects in Dhaka.

Where does this fit in Bangladesh's power and connectivity picture?

Bangladesh's national grid still falls short of round-the-clock supply outside the main metropolitan areas, and the regulator has set targets to expand mobile broadband coverage to rural unions that depend heavily on tower-mounted radio equipment. IPS systems remain a common household purchase in cities and towns precisely because utility interruptions persist, despite ongoing additions to national generation capacity.

For Edotco Bangladesh, a battery-reuse pipeline complements its core work of building and maintaining passive telecom infrastructure for mobile network operators. The company has been pushing energy-efficiency upgrades across its tower portfolio, including hybrid power systems and solar retrofits, and previously signalled interest in circular-economy initiatives for battery assets.

What to watch next

The size of the first battery batch, the IPS capacity on offer, and the retail or lease channels Tiger New Energy intends to use will determine whether the scheme moves beyond a pilot. Edotco Bangladesh's parent has indicated that outcomes from this Bangladesh programme could feed into broader Edotco Group battery-management strategies across Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Sri Lanka, where similar grid-reliability pressures shape tower economics.