MAYOR of Swindon Ray Fisher has been given a tour of Motorola's Cellular Networks headquarters in Groundwell.

Coun Fisher was invited to view the company's renewable energy-powered mobile phone base-station that was set up a year ago as a research project in connection with SETsquared and local universities.

He also saw at first hand yesterday how wind and solar power were generating enough energy to run the test base station.

On a sunny or windy day the system generates in excess of 1KW of electricity, enough to boil a kettle continuously. Surplus power generated is stored in batteries, which is then used to run the base station at night or on calm days.

Coun Fisher said of his visit: "It was extremely informative.

"I didn't realise the scope of the technology and how up to date everything is up there.

"The other thing that surprised me was the amount of excellent work Motorola does in the community.

"I knew of one or two projects that they are involved with, but they encourage their staff to get involved in community groups and they have people working at the company who organise that.

"Motorola also has its own test area where they test out mobile phones and they have their own network."