Optus Base Station Cooling Project (Revoked)

Optus Base Station Cooling Project (Revoked) was an industrial energy efficiency project distributed across Optus's mobile network infrastructure throughout Australia. Registered in October 2015 and voluntarily revoked in July 2018, the project was managed by Shell Energy Trading Pty Ltd. Because the project involved an aggregation of mobile base stations rather than a single plot of land, it had no specific "nearest town" or fixed coordinates, covering sites across the entire nation.

The project operated under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative-Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency) Methodology Determination 2015. This methodology credits reductions in electricity consumption achieved by upgrading existing equipment. For this specific project, the activities involved modifying and replacing HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems at telecommunications shelters. Mobile base stations generate significant heat and require constant cooling; this project likely introduced "free cooling" technologies (using outside air to cool equipment) or high-efficiency air conditioning units to lower the electricity load.

The "land use" for this project is Telecommunications Infrastructure, comprising small industrial compounds located in varied environments ranging from urban rooftops to remote bushland. Consequently, the environmental conditions vary wildly, spanning all Australian climate zones, from the humid tropics of Queensland to the cool temperate regions of Tasmania.

An interesting note is the timing of the project's registration (2015) and its subsequent revocation. Optus sustainability reports frequently cite a "2015 baseline" for their current energy reduction targets. It is highly likely that while the specific ACCU project was revoked (possibly due to administrative complexity or the small volume of credits relative to the effort), the underlying activity, improving base station cooling efficiency, continued as a core pillar of Optus's corporate sustainability strategy and their Science-Based Targets (SBTi) commitment rather than as a standalone carbon offset generator.