Why do base stations need to be re-powered when upgrading to 5G

Selected 5G base stations in China are being powered off every day from 21:00 to next day 9:00 to reduce energy consumption and lower electricity bills. 5G base stations are truly large consumers of energy such that electricity bills have become one of the biggest costs for 5G network operators.

According to the mobile telephone network (MTN), which is a multinational mobile telecommunications company, report (Walker, 2020), the dense layer of small cell and more antennas requirements will cause energy costs to grow because of up to twice or more power consumption of a 5G base station than the power of a 4G base station.

TrendForce research vice president Kelly Hsieh indicates that, from a technical perspective, the growth in mobile data consumption, low-latency applications (such as self-driving cars, remote surgeries, and smart manufacturing), and large-scale M2M (smart cities) requires an increase in 5G base stations for support.

In order to ensure the signal strength, the power must be increased. In order not to be blocked by walls, many base stations must be densely placed in the cell to avoid being blocked by too many walls. If you want to enjoy the high speed of the 5G era, you have to increase the number of base stations more than ten times or even hundreds of times.

The current 200,000 base stations can save 1.2 billion annually. By the end of this year, 1 million 5G base stations will be built, saving 6 billion in a year. If there are more than 2 million base stations, 12 billion electricity can be saved a year, which is equivalent to China Unicom's total profit in one year.

There are several potential advantages of RE in 5G mobile networks. First, for the network operator, RE can reduce the cost of energy consumption by deploying solar or wind energy base stations. RE enabled BSs can use solar energy for operation in the daytime, along with storing it in rechargeable batteries.