Under the background that the human world attaches great importance to green and low-carbon development, "green" has become a new keyword in the telecommunications industry, and "5G changes society" has also been endowed with richer connotations.

On the one hand, with the gradual improvement of global commercial use and the rapid development of the digital economy, the commercial value and social value of 5G are being released at an accelerated rate, and its enabling effect on energy conservation and emission reduction in thousands of industries has also begun to emerge; on the other hand, although 5G single Compared with 4G, the bit energy consumption has dropped significantly, but the continuous doubling of network traffic in the 5G era has also brought about a rising total energy consumption.

Some research institutes predict that from 2019 to 2025, with the explosive development of the 5G industry, the carbon emissions of the telecommunications industry will soar from 233 million tons to 406 million tons, an increase of 74% in six years. Beyond the general industry level. The increase in electricity costs brought about by high energy consumption increases the burden on operators to a certain extent.

Today, a number of leading operators have made "double carbon" the focus of their development strategies, and have released relevant goals and strategies. Promoting the green and low-carbon evolution of 5G can be described as time and again.

For several years of commercial use, the driving effect of 5G has been fully verified. As the penetration rate of 5G crosses the 20% critical point of Rogers' innovation diffusion theory, some operators who have invested heavily in 5G have already seen considerable returns on their investment. For example, China's three major operators have achieved substantial revenue and profitability in 2021. Growth, the same story is happening in countries like South Korea and Kuwait.

More importantly, by integrating with various digital technologies, 5G has greatly enriched people's digital lives, improved the working environment of multiple industries, and made society more inclusive. In addition, as the foundation of digital transformation, it provides the necessary support for the implementation of green initiatives in all walks of life, and plays an increasingly important role.

However, there are not only flowers and applause on the road of 5G development, but also many hurdles to overcome, especially the energy consumption and the resulting carbon emissions.

The arrival of 5G has changed the society, and it will encounter some problems in the construction process, such as difficult site selection, high energy consumption, including CAPEX and OPEX brought about by large-scale growth. Peng Jianhua pointed out that the single-bit energy consumption of 5G is one-fifth of that of 4G, but the peak rate has increased by 20 times, so the total energy consumption is higher than that of 4G.

For operators, if they let energy consumption remain high and even continue to grow, it will be difficult to achieve a positive 5G business cycle, which will ultimately hinder the future development of the 5G industry. From a macro perspective, the increasingly severe climate change has seriously threatened our living environment, and "carbon neutrality" has become the most urgent mission in today's world. In the 5G era, the growth rate of carbon emissions in the telecommunications industry greatly exceeds the global growth rate. need to be effectively contained.

So, what is causing the high energy consumption of 5G? A very important reason is the traditional way to build and operate 5G networks.

There are some misunderstandings about energy saving and emission reduction in the current telecommunications industry, such as the belief that power saving is energy saving and emission reduction, ignoring the sunk costs behind the "box", and overly focusing on a single point of carbon reduction. In fact, energy saving and emission reduction include energy saving, land saving and material saving, which need to be considered comprehensively; when building a station, you cannot only focus on the main equipment and energy system. There are 70% sunk costs behind the "box", such as transportation, installation, operation and maintenance. etc.; Green and low-carbon should run through the entire life cycle of the network, the entire scenario, and the entire process.

And through technological and methodological innovation, "adding 5G without adding energy OPEX" is not an impossible task.

In terms of construction, traditional sites are constructed in computer rooms, which cover a large area and consume high air-conditioning energy. The energy efficiency of sites is usually only 50-60%, or even only 30% in some cases. "Extreme simplification" is a good prescription .

If an outdoor site is used to replace the computer room site, the site energy efficiency can be increased to 80%; if the pole site of the blade power supply with the natural cooling structure is further adopted, the site energy efficiency can be increased to 97%. By "replacing houses with cabinets and stations with poles", the energy efficiency of the site can be maximized, and every kilowatt-hour of electricity can be used on the cutting edge; at the same time, the civil construction cost and construction period can be reduced. In Zhangjiakou, based on the high integration of the whole scene A minimalist site solution, the site installation time is reduced from 2 to 3 days to 2 hours.

In terms of operation and maintenance, traditional site maintenance mostly relies on manual labor, requiring a lot of repetitive and complex operations, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and labor costs are high, especially in some extremely remote areas. "Intelligence" has been put on the agenda.


Energy conservation and emission reduction is a systematic project involving various measures. The "dual carbon" transformation of operators is by no means an overnight success, and depends on the joint efforts of the entire industry and even the whole society.

As the foundation of the digital world, energy has become a key part of digital infrastructure and one of the important competitiveness factors of the digital economy. Peng Jianhua suggested that the entire industry should pay more attention and increase investment, combine traditional energy technology with digital technology, and use "bits to manage watts" through energy digitization.

At the same time, the establishment of the network key performance indicator system (KPI) helps operators improve network performance in a targeted manner and provide better service experience. Liu Baochang believes that the same is true for the green and low-carbon development of the telecommunications industry. It is necessary to establish a set of standards and systems for measuring carbon emissions as soon as possible, so that operators can find and solve problems and support the realization of energy-saving and emission-reduction goals. He also called on the government to subsidize green electricity and increase the training of "dual-carbon" talents.

"Digitalization" and "carbon neutrality" are two important issues in today's world, and 5G is the rope in the middle. As Fang Liangzhou said, 5G accelerates the digitalization process of all walks of life and promotes energy conservation and emission reduction in the whole society. It also urgently needs to move towards green and low carbon. This issue of "Fangbo Carbon Discussion Room" undoubtedly provides useful thinking for building a 5G network with excellent performance and energy saving, and then helping operators to transform into "dual carbon".

5G is also green, driving more bits with less watts, and changing "carbon footprint" into "carbon fingerprint". Ebyte is worth looking forward to such a future!