SPONSOR CONTENT“5G will allow us to modulate our energy use in
so many places we’ve overlooked, just because
we didn’t have the communications tools to
make equipment truly smart.”
- Zach Chang, Carrier-Network Product Manager, Huawei
The ubiquitous base stations that trans-
mit and receive wireless radio signals
currently account for as much as 80
percent of total network energy use;
almost half of an individual station's
power use is for air-conditioning to
cool the equipment. In China, however,
Huawei has developed and deployed
5G stations that generate less heat,
use sophisticated power-management
software, and employ open-air cooling
to dramatically reduce electrical con-
sumption— saving an estimated 4,
kilowatt hours of power per site, per
year, which translates to about 1,
kilograms of carbon emissions.Today’s 4G networks use almost the
same amount of energy regardless of
how much data they handle. By con-
trast, 5G will permit reduced power
consumption during periods of lower
network traffic. “I work in an indus-
trial park,” Chang says. “During the
day, lots of people go there to work.
They’re checking emails and making
lots of phone calls. The nearby base
station has to work at peak capacity
to process all of that data. But at night,
those same people leave. So you don’t
need that peak capacity. With 5G, you
can lower your power use significantly
without sacrificing performance.”According to Huawei Chairman Liang
Hua, a single kilowatt hour of electricity
is sufficient to download about 300
high-definition movies on 4G networks—
but on 5G, that same kilowatt hour will
power about 5,000 ultra-high-definition
movie downloads.The results have
been promising.KEEPING COOL
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http://www.theatlantic.com/huawei5G5G will be much more powerful than 4G in terms
of processing power and bandwidth and has the
potential to cover the whole Earth’s population,”
says Zach Chang, a carrier-network product man-
ager at Huawei. “All of that will increase energy
consumption. If the efficiency of the entire infra-
structure doesn’t go up, it won’t make financial
or environmental sense. It won’t be sustainable.”But that’s not a fait accompli. Huawei and others
are building 5G networks with energy efficiency
in mind, aiming to use less power to transmit
more data.Ultimately, 5G’s most important contribution
to energy efficiency may come by enabling con-
nected, sensor-equipped factories, cities, and
transportation grids that use advanced analytics
and artificial intelligence to optimize and reduce
power consumption—cutting costs while put-
ting less CO into the atmosphere. “5G will allow
us to modulate our energy use in so many places
we’ve overlooked, just because we didn’t have
the communications tools to make equipment
truly smart,” Chang says. “Our society as a whole
can become much more energy efficient.”5G could play a significant role in that rise. A world
of many more devices—security cameras, smart
televisions, connected factory robots—trans-
mitting much more data will require far more
power, what the telecom-sustainability expert
Anders Andrae calls a potential “perfect storm”
of increased energy consumption.“2