Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released my country’s latest “Economic Operation of the Communication Industry” data. According to data, as of the end of November, the total number of 5G base stations in my country has reached 2.287 million, an increase of 862,000 compared with the end of 2021.

These huge number of base stations together build a huge 5G network. And this network not only provides us with an unprecedented mobile Internet experience, but also promotes the development of the digital economy of the entire society and provides a surging impetus for the digital transformation of all walks of life.

We have witnessed the birth of 5G and the rise of 5G. While we marvel at the amazing changes brought about by 5G, we cannot ignore the test of 5G’s long-term development.

Energy consumption is one of the important challenges faced by 5G.

Since 5G was put into commercial use, doubts and worries surrounding 5G energy consumption have never ceased.

As we all know, 5G has a huge performance improvement compared to 4G in terms of speed, delay and capacity. Behind the performance improvement, it will inevitably bring about an increase in the absolute power consumption of the device. For example, 5G base stations introduce AAU (active antenna) in order to realize Massive MIMO (large-scale antenna array) and 3D Beamforming (beamforming). The power consumption of the AAU must be greater than that of the passive antenna of the 4G base station.

With the efforts of scientific researchers, although the working power of 5G equipment is greater than that of 4G equipment, the unit bit energy consumption of 5G equipment is far lower than that of 4G, which is about one tenth of 4G.

This is not enough. The entire communications industry, including equipment vendors and operators, is still increasing investment in research and development to study how to further reduce the power consumption of 5G equipment and realize the green and low-carbon development of 5G.

Recently, Ericsson, an industry giant, deeply integrated its own energy technology and base station technology, and released the world’s first 5G intelligent green base station solution , setting a new benchmark for green 5G network construction.

In Jiangsu, Ericsson cooperated with Jiangsu Mobile to launch the industry’s first 5G intelligent green base station, and realized zero-carbon operation of 700MHz single station. In Guangdong, Ericsson cooperated with Guangdong Mobile to open a 5G intelligent green base station in the 2.6GHz frequency band.
Next, let’s take a closer look at what is so special about Ericsson’s new solution.

█ Black technology of 5G intelligent green base station
As an industry-leading equipment manufacturer, Ericsson has rich experience and strong technical accumulation in mobile communication network construction. Ericsson’s 5G technology serves 61 countries around the world, with a total of 137 5G networks.
It is precisely because Ericsson has served so many users that they have a deeper understanding of user needs.
Compared with some manufacturers’ simple grafting of base station systems and energy systems, Wang Linying, a senior network evolution expert in Ericsson Northeast Asia, believes that the key to building green base stations is to perfectly solve the integration of base station systems and energy systems. In other words, for green energy sites, the biggest application problem is not the acquisition of new energy, but how to realize the unified scheduling and comprehensive management of energy.
Ericsson’s “intelligent green” base station solution is composed of Ericsson 5G base station system and Ericsson energy system.

As a green base station, it can support various energy types such as solar energy, wind energy, mains electricity, diesel generators and batteries, and can support new energy sources in the future, such as hydrogen energy.
Different from the industry’s traditional green base station solution, Ericsson’s “intelligent green” base station solution focuses on strengthening the mixed management support for multiple energy systems, and has strong scheduling flexibility.
Wang Shengyong, General Manager of Ericsson China Mobile Wireless Product Solution, said: “The technical core of the solution is Ericsson’s latest intelligent site manager . It can realize quality assurance, intelligent scheduling of multiple energy sources, full-stack real-time monitoring, energy and business Intelligent collaboration.”

Feature 1: Multi-energy unified management and intelligent dispatch
Ericsson’s solution, the green energy generated by photovoltaic panels and wind turbines is connected to Ericsson’s site intelligent manager through Ericsson’s new energy power board and storage battery. It can realize the unified management and intelligent optimal dispatch of multiple energy sources.
In other words, multiple energy sources can be used automatically and flexibly according to site conditions without manual intervention.
For example, when the sun is available, use solar energy first. If the instantaneous power consumption of the site is too large, the battery can participate in supplementary power supply. In the case of time-of-use electricity prices, solar energy and batteries can be used when electricity costs are high, and utility power can be used when electricity costs are low.
The picture below shows the operation of Ericsson’s first 5G intelligent green base station deployed in Jiangsu.

The red part in the figure is the electric energy generated by the utility power before switching into this scheme. Green is the electric energy generated by solar energy, blue is the power consumption of the base station, and gray is the electric energy provided by the battery.
You can see that in sunny weather, the solar power can meet the normal needs of the base station. However, under the rainy weather (October 26), the solar power was insufficient, and the battery replenished the needs of the base station in time.
The intelligent green station can realize 100% green energy power supply. It is worth mentioning that for scenarios such as universal telecommunications services and mountainous scenic spots where transmission and mains power are unreachable, the smart green station can be used together with Ericsson’s microwave products to achieve a completely “wireless” zero-carbon base station deployment. This solution can also be applied to sites with tight power supply in the suburbs. Through the introduction of new energy, the pressure on power supply can be alleviated and the cost of electricity can be saved.
Feature 2: Integrated supervision of base stations and new energy
In terms of management and operation and maintenance, Ericsson’s “intelligent green” base station solution is also unique.
By remotely connecting the site intelligent manager to the same network management system as the base station, it can realize the integrated supervision of the base station and new energy.

This means that, for the base station, the working status of the power system is completely transparent.
Through the base station network management system, staff can realize full-stack remote maintenance and software upgrades, and can view performance data, configuration data, alarm data, battery health status and other information in real time. This not only reduces operational difficulty and cost, but also reduces the risk of site power failure.
The deep integration of the energy system and the base station system also provides the possibility to optimize the energy saving strategy of the base station system.
For example, when the number of users in some cells is small and energy is in short supply, users can be relocated to adjacent cells, and cells with fewer users can be automatically closed to prolong the use time of green energy.
Feature 3: Strong level of
intelligence Intelligence is a prominent feature of Ericsson’s “intelligent green” base station solution.
The solution can further intelligently adjust the energy-saving strategy of the base station according to the business status of the base station and the energy supply level of new energy, so as to realize the dynamic optimization and coordination of the business status of the base station and the energy supply level.
For example, the smart scheduling function of multiple energy sources can simultaneously supply and store energy when green energy is abundant. At night or in special weather, when green energy is scarce, the green energy power supply of the base station is guaranteed. At the same time, combined with periodic power consumption fluctuations, intelligently manage and control the charging and discharging strategy of the battery to further reduce energy consumption and improve the service life of the whole station.
Feature 4: High security level
The joint product platform of Ericsson Site Intelligent Manager and Ericsson base station system has the same security level as the base station, which can effectively prevent network security attacks.
All in all, Ericsson’s “intelligent green” base station solution realizes the unified management and intelligent scheduling of multiple energy sources, provides real intelligent collaboration between the energy system and the base station business system, and makes the whole system more integrated.
The whole set of solutions solves the pain points of operators in the process of “green” base station construction, and meets the needs of operators in terms of quality, security, management and optimization. Its application prospect is extremely broad, representing the development direction of the green network.

█Advanced , extreme, intelligent: Ericsson’s three pillars of energy saving
In the field of communications, Ericsson is the first equipment manufacturer in the industry to explicitly propose a dual-carbon target. The “Breaking the Energy Consumption Curve Report” released by them provides pertinent and practical suggestions for operators to build 5G networks, which has far-reaching significance for the development of the entire industry.
“Breaking the Energy Consumption Curve Report” (Ericsson)
Ericsson’s 5G intelligent green base station solution is a microcosm of Ericsson’s entire green 5G network strategy. In order to create an extremely green and low-carbon 5G network, Ericsson has built a very large roadmap.
They plan to achieve carbon neutrality in their own operations by 2030 and are committed to achieving carbon neutrality across the entire value chain by 2040.
Ericsson’s dual-carbon phased goals
In order to achieve these goals, Ericsson has launched an advanced, extreme, and intelligent three-level energy-saving strategy:

Advanced device-level energy saving

When designing the system, Ericsson strengthened the application of new technology, new devices, new materials, etc., boldly innovated, and continued to reduce the power consumption of wireless main equipment.
In terms of new technology, Ericsson’s original silicon core technology continues to evolve in the process, which can effectively reduce the chip power consumption under the same circuit scale.
In terms of new devices, Ericsson cooperates with suppliers to deeply customize power amplifiers and design devices in combination with DPD algorithms to ensure optimal efficiency.
In terms of new materials, Ericsson uses new materials with high thermal conductivity, combined with thin-fin heat dissipation teeth technology, to improve heat dissipation efficiency and optimize power consumption of equipment. They also introduced a low-loss ceramic filter solution to reduce the inter-stage insertion loss while greatly improving the weight and volume of the device.
Ericsson officially released the industry’s lightest and smallest second-generation active-passive antenna integrated (A+P) wireless device AIR3218 in 2022, as well as the industry’s lightest small mid-band Massive MIMO product mini-AAU AIR3268. Impressed. These lightweight and miniaturized devices can significantly reduce carbon emissions during installation and transportation.
Ericsson AIR3268

Ultimate site-level energy savings

Ericsson’s existing wireless network energy-saving software functions, including radio frequency unit symbol shutdown, channel shutdown, shallow sleep, deep sleep, tidal power amplifier, downlink power control, etc., have been deployed on a large scale in customers’ existing networks. Operators can enable corresponding energy-saving functions according to the presence and level of business volume, so as to achieve energy saving and consumption reduction without affecting the 5G user experience.
In the depth and refinement of shutdown, Ericsson has gone further. Based on the flexible modular architecture design of Silicon Core Technology, Ericsson optimizes the resource management of the baseband unit, finely controls the granularity of the power domain, and realizes real-time scheduling of baseband resources according to business needs, reducing the consumption of the baseband unit by about 30%. In terms of refinement, Ericsson refines the granularity of the shutdown time according to the scheduling methods of network frequency domain and air domain resources at each layer of the existing network. Measures should be taken at different levels”.

Intelligent network-level energy saving

Actively introducing artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI-ML) is a trend in the industry to promote energy conservation and emission reduction of 5G networks. Ericsson believes that the future “green” network construction will develop in the direction of intelligent multi-dimensional and comprehensive intelligence.
Ericsson’s smart residential network-level energy saving can take advantage of the obvious tidal phenomenon of mobile network traffic to intelligently shut down the network. For example, at night, the capacity layer of the office park is turned off according to the traffic demand, and the coverage layer is reserved, so as to save energy and reduce consumption without affecting user experience.
In terms of infrastructure energy saving, Ericsson’s intelligent comprehensive system can measure and collect data on infrastructure (such as air conditioners, batteries, wind energy, solar energy, mains power, etc.), and accurately control the temperature of air conditioners, power consumption types, and battery charging through AI predictions. Discharge, etc., in order to reduce energy costs.

█Conclusion The energy saving and emission reduction of 5G

network is a long-term task. The green and low-carbonization of the entire communication network is the common mission of the industry.
Ericsson has set an example for the entire industry in the formulation of dual-carbon targets, energy-saving technology research and development, and product solution innovation, and also demonstrated the responsibility and attitude of a communications giant. In this regard, Wang Haobo, general manager of Ericsson China Technology Department, said: “With the continuous advancement of the wave of digitalization, communication infrastructure such as 5G will continue to expand its scale and exert greater value. Completely solve the problem of 5G power consumption , building a true ‘zero-carbon’ network will help build a sustainable digital society and create a better living environment for future generations.”
As Ericsson President and CEO Börje Ekholm said: ” We must create value in a sustainable way, and we firmly believe that unlimited connectivity will be the key to solving the climate crisis.”