Today we see that a major part of energy consumption in mobile networks comes from the radio base station sites and that the consumption is stable. We can also see that even in densely deployed networks, as i.
How do base stations affect mobile cellular network power consumption?
Base stations represent the main contributor to the energy consumption of a mobile cellular network. Since traffic load in mobile networks significantly varies during a working or weekend day, it is important to quantify the influence of these variations on the base station power consumption.
How much power does a 5G station use?
The power consumption of a single 5G station is 2.5 to 3.5 times higher than that of a single 4G station. The main factor behind this increase in 5G power consumption is the high power usage of the active antenna unit (AAU). Under a full workload, a single station uses nearly 3700W.
Is there a direct relationship between base station traffic load and power consumption?
The real data in terms of the power consumption and traffic load have been obtained from continuous measurements performed on a fully operated base station site. Measurements show the existence of a direct relationship between base station traffic load and power consumption.
The largest energy consumer in the BS is the power amplifier, which has a share of around 65% of the total energy consumption . Of the other base station elements, significant energy consumers are: air conditioning (17.5%), digital signal processing (10%) and AC/DC conversion elements (7.5%) .
Of the other base station elements, significant energy consumers are: air conditioning (17.5%), digital signal processing (10%) and AC/DC conversion elements (7.5%) . New research aimed at reducing energy consumption in the cellular access networks can be viewed in terms of three levels: component, link and network.
DC power consumption statistics. Based on Table 2, the lowest oscillations in the daily power consumption were recorded for the UMTS technology (∼20%) while the highest variations were obtained for the GSM 900 BSs (34%–43%).