5G is Taking Off, but What is the Impact on Energy Requirements?

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By Jake Saunders | 4Q 2019 | IN-5651

5G is rapidly taking shape and form. As of the end of August 2019, the Global Supplier Association (GSA) reported that 296 operators in 100 countries have licensed, tested, trialed, or carried out a launch of 5G, out of which, 56 operators in 32 countries have announced the infrastructure deployment of 5G and 39 operators have announced limited or full scale 5G service launches. With this commercial momentum, there will be an associated growth in 5G subscriptions as well as traffic. At the end of 2018, worldwide subscriptions totaled 7.9 billion, while 47% of subscriptions were 4G LTE. 5G is expected to grow rapidly. ABI Research forecasts 5G subscriptions will start to hit critical mass by 2022 and reach 3 billion by 2025. The associated traffic will follow a similar explosive growth trajectory. 5G subscribers may only represent 54% of total subscriptions in 2025, but they represent 79% of the total traffic generated in 2025. This is a very rosy outlook for 5G, but there is increasingly both growing interest and concern over the energy supply requirement for 5G. What is the impact of 5G? Can Communications Service Providers (CSPs) address the energy supply needs of their cell-sites? What are the solutions to mitigate those needs?

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5G Will Show Exponential Growth

NEWS


5G is rapidly taking shape and form. As of the end of August 2019, the Global Supplier Association (GSA) reported that 296 operators in 100 countries have licensed, tested, trialed, or carried out a launch of 5G, out of which, 56 operators in 32 countries have announced the infrastructure deployment of 5G and 39 operators have announced limited or full scale 5G service launches.

With this commercial momentum, there will be an associated growth in 5G subscriptions as well as traffic. At the end of 2018, worldwide subscriptions totaled 7.9 billion, while 47% of subscriptions were 4G LTE. 5G is expected to grow rapidly. ABI Research forecasts 5G subscriptions will start to hit critical mass by 2022 and reach 3 billion by 2025. The associated traffic will follow a similar explosive growth trajectory. 5G subscribers may only represent 54% of total subscriptions in 2025, but they represent 79% of the total traffic generated in 2025.

This is a very rosy outlook for 5G, but there is increasingly both growing interest and concern over the energy supply requirement for 5G. What is the impact of 5G? Can Communications Service Providers (CSPs) address the energy supply needs of their cell-sites? What are the solutions to mitigate those needs?

What is Driving the Increased 5G Energy Demand?

IMPACT


Despite the promise of 5G, it puts increased pressure on CSPs:

  • Supporting Additional Spectrum and Access Technologies: A few countries (e.g., Australia, Korea, Singapore, etc.) have jettisoned 2G, but the reality is that most CSPs need to support the legacy mobile cellular access technologies. There is speculation that 3G may be switched off at a faster rate than 2G as 2G is kept as a connectivity layer for international voice roaming and to support General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The legacy access network technologies also come with an assortment of spectrum bands. Therefore, the base stations require transceivers to transmit/receive the traffic to and from the end-user. Ten years ago, the typical operator only needed to support three spectrum bands (900 MHz, 2.1 GHz, and 2.6 GHz). A typical CSP commencing its 5G journey will likely need to support five spectrum bands (the existing bands plus 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz). Peering five years or so into the future, the typical CSP may be supporting seven to nine spectrum bands that also include microwave bands.
  • Massive MIMO: Massive Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) is an essential technology for CSPs. LTE Advanced Pro and 5G rely on high-order MIMO to scale up multiple transmissions to a particular end user device and handle transmissions to clusters of active end users, be they on the ground or in skyscrapers. The Active Antenna Units (AAU), such as 8T8R, 32T32R, or even 64T64R, will substantially increase the required power supply. According to Huawei, the 5G BaseBand Unit requires 300 Watts, while an AAU requires 900 Watts at a 30% load.
  • Mobile Edge Computing: The business case for Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is still being consolidated, but MEC has potential applications in the smart home as well as within enterprises. While not all cell-sites will be provisioned with MEC, it will have to be factored into the Operational Expenditure (OPEX) calculations for cell sites where it is deployed.
  • Additional Cabinets: The additional 5G electronics and increased power supply will lead to a larger cabinet being required on site, which is likely to increase tenancy fees by around EUR€5,000-8,000 per year.
  • As a result, the typical power consumption of a macro-cell site will grow from the current 5~6 kilowatts (kW) to 9~11 kW in approximately three years’ time and potentially 14 kW in five years’ time. However, CSPs need to factor in peak load scenarios where end user usage, and therefore traffic, will spike, resulting in a peak power of 8 kW today that is likely to grow to 19 kW in five years’ time.
  • Network Densification: These energy supply demands at the cell-site level then need to be scaled up for the reality that CSPs will need to substantially densify their cell-site networks over the next five to seven years. Deployment scenarios will vary, but we can expect 2x to 4x deployment scenarios although a large proportion of that increase will take the form of small cells.

What Can CSPs Do?

RECOMMENDATIONS


In the near term, CSPs will likely face some network dimensioning challenges that will not be easy to mitigate. Innovation cycles in silicon architecture and component design will work their magic in the longer term, but CSPs may need to make some pragmatic decisions as to which spectrum bands and legacy access technologies a particular site operates on.

Other strategies include:

  • Ensuring cell-site equipment is properly configured and fully optimized to minimize power consumption
  • Various telecom equipment operate with different electrical requirements, e.g. HVDC, 12VDC, 24VAC, 220VAC; these need to be rationalized as much a possible.
  • CSPs will need to reduce their energy dependency on polluting and/or excessive CO2 generating sources. Deploying solar panels, sourcing energy from wind farms, tidal power, hydro dams, are part of the answer but also deploying lithium battery banks will not only help to assure cellular connectivity if parts of the gird go down but also the lithium power banks can help to “top up” electrical power in peak load scenarios. Therefore, the CSP does not need to draw additional power from the national grid during these peak times.
  • CSPs in both developing and developed markets still rely on lead-acid batteries and even diesel generators. Clearly these assets need to deliver the Return on Investment (ROI), but these legacy backup energy solutions can often be unreliable in switching over to assure continuous power supply. Diesel generators are often incorrectly configured to come online during a blackout. Lead-acid batteries do not have a consistent output voltage profile over their discharge cycle.

Infrastructure vendors will need to address the increased power consumption requirements of 5G in Research and Development (R&D) and recommended deployment strategies. Huawei has been very proactive, not only in the 5G arena but also in the rural connectivity arena, with the development of its PowerStar range of energy solutions. Ericsson has advocating how “sleep modes” can improve the overall power consumption profile of 5G New Radio (NR) cell-sites. Nokia suggests modernizing legacy base station equipment and ensuring resources between all radio access technologies are shared using Single Radio Access Network (RAN) software. ZTE states energy consumption on 5G cell-sites can be brought down through its Access Cloud Engine (ACE) solution.

It is heartening to see the steps being taken by the infrastructure vendors to mitigate the increased energy-related costs posed by 5G layered on top of legacy 2G, 3G, and 4G equipment, but more still needs to be done. Bottlenecks stimulates innovation. Nevertheless, over the coming years, there will be increased discussions within CSPs as well as wider scrutiny from the wider community.

 

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