Energy consumption has become a rising concern for carriers across the globe. Many of whom have made commitments to net 0 in recent years. As 5G technology grow rapidly, and migrate to 5.5G and 10 Gbps speeds, Huawei, the world-leading Chinese ICT giant, released new green solutions to reduce energy usage, across networks without impacting speed or reliability on October 27, at the Global Mobile Broadband Forum in Bangkok, Thailand.
Huawei launched its GreenSite solution and PowerStar 2.0 solution at last years MBBF in Dubai, which helped to build low carbon energy efficient networks by simplifying sites and adding a degree of intelligent automation. According to Huawei, they were able to increase site energy efficiency by up to 97% through reducing the need for powering hungry aircon units by swapping rooms for cabinets, canintes for single poles.
Huawei first released its PowerStar solution in 2018, which can automatically configure and optimize the parameters and automatically reducing power usage during peak or low usage periods. According to Huawei, currently, the solution supports 24/7 energy savings, and can further reduce energy consumption between the 5% to 15%.
In addition, with the newly released GreenSite 2.0 solution, Huawei is able to achieve intelligent linkage between services and site auxiliary equipment. “This solution perceives information of site auxiliary equipment in a multi-dimensional way, as accounting for power supply, temperature, and antenna, and adjusts these variables based on service changes,” according to Huawei.
To put the solution’s efficiency in context, the GreenSite 2.0 saves more than 15% of site energy by allowing air conditioner temperature to be adjusted in real time based on service load.
“From now on I think the world needs to cut down the carbon emission by 17.6% every year to meet our 1.5 target.
“The global energy shortage reach has cost the electricity price soaring especially in some European countries. According to the industry data, our network traffic increased almost by 100x,” said Duan Hao, Vice President of Huawei SRAN Product Line, who added that the world needs to cut down the carbon emission by 17.6% every year to meet target.
In addition, Huawei’s green energy solution incorporates green equipment. With the enhanced AAUs that Huawei developed, the company aims to achieve “0 bits and 0 watts via Super Deep Dormancy.” Huawei’s latest product MetaAAU is widely deployed in China and Philippines now, and “under the same coverage, MetaAAU is able to reduce energy consumption by 30%,” according to Duan.
Huawei will continue to innovate in the three layers of “equipment, site, and networks,” and has “prepared to multi-dimensional energy efficiency matrix system which will guide our next innovation,” according to Aaron Jiang, President of Huawei’s SRAN Product Line. Huawei’s solutions have already been deployed in over 800,000 sites of over 100 Telecom operators, saving them 400 million kilowatt hours of electricity every year.
"Energy saving is an ongoing topic in the ICT industry. Improving energy efficiency while meeting service development requirements is the key to building low-carbon networks. Huawei will continue to develop innovative green solutions and promote their adoption on commercial networks, to help operators build green 5G target networks,” said Jiang.
This year’s MBBF is hosted in Bangkok, Thailand, a country expected to reach 5G coverage of 85% and provide 5G to nearly 10 million subscribers by end of 2022. The country is one of the fastest growing 5G market in ASEAN, with a 9.2% penetration rate, only behind Singapore, with 13.9%.
According to local carrier True’s Co-Chief Commercial Officer, Tanaphon Manavutiveth, the early release of 5G spectrum, fast network rollout by local telecom companies, and 5G device availability in the local market as well as the support by the local government all contributed to the rapid adoption of 5G in Thailand.