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The introduction of mobile telecommunication services in Nigeria led to the development of base transceiver stations (BTS) across the country. Inadequate power supply from the national grid has led to massive use of diesel-fueled back-up generators (BUGs). The purpose of this paper is to attempt to quantify and inform relevant stakeholders about air quality implications of BTS BUGs.

Seven major telecommunication network operators were identified. Emission factor approach was used to estimate the quantity of important air pollutants such as NO_x, CO, SO₂, PM₁₀, PM_2.5, PAH and TVOC that are emitted from the use of the BUGs based on fuel consumption rate and generators’ capacity. Fuel-based emission inventory and emission factor from the United States Environmental Protection Agency AP-42 and National Pollution Inventory were used to estimate pollutants emission from diesel-powered generators used in the BTS sites and amount of diesel consumed. Land distribution and per capita dose of the estimated pollutants load were calculated.

The study showed that the deployment of BUGs will lead to increase emissions of these air pollutants. The states that are most affected are Lagos, Kano and Oyo, Katsina and Akwa Ibom states with respective total air pollutants contribution of 9,539.61, 9,445.34, 8,276.46, 7,805.14 and 7,220.70 tonnes/yr.

This study has estimated pollutant emissions from the use of diesel-fueled BUGs in mobile telecommunications BTS sites in Nigeria. The data obtained could assist in policy making.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impacts of the noise from the diesel engine power generators used for production activities in an urban environment.

This study has used the Enterprise Edition of NoiseMap 2000 Version 2.7.1 to investigate the impacts of the noise from the diesel engines electric power generators used in a factory in Ikorodu, an urban environment in Lagos, Nigeria. Five sections of the factory with diesel engines electric power generators were considered. The immediate and distant environments covering about 10 km of the factory host environment were considered as receptors to the noise for this study.

It was found out that when all the generators operate simultaneously in the factory, the ambient noise was 30.0-152.5 dB(A) with the minimum contribution within the factory being 70.0-84.4 dB(A) and the maximum contribution of 57.2-70.8 dB(A) outside the factory fence line. Though the maximum noise is 152.5 dB(A), the maximum noise of 70.8 dB(A) beyond the fence line shows a compliance with 70 dB(A) industrial and commercial area limit but breaches the 45 dB(A) and 55 dB(A) residential area limit of the World Bank.

As much as it would be desirable ambient noise level could not be measured in all the receptors’ locations covered by the modeling. However, the capability of the modeling software adopted makes this to have no negative impact on the quality of the findings of this study.

The study will assist the public to determine the noise level safe region around diesel engine electric power generators.

The paper highlights the challenges in which ambient noise from the use of off-grid generators used for industrial purposes could pose to the neighboring receptor environments.