Base station embedded power usage

How do base stations affect mobile cellular network power consumption?

Base stations represent the main contributor to the energy consumption of a mobile cellular network. Since traffic load in mobile networks significantly varies during a working or weekend day, it is important to quantify the influence of these variations on the base station power consumption.

Do base stations dominate the energy consumption of the radio access network?

Furthermore, the base stations dominate the energy consumption of the radio access network. Therefore, it is reasonable to focus on the power consumption of the base stations first, while other aspects such as virtualization of compute in the 5G core or the energy consumption of user equipment should be considered at a later stage.

Is there a direct relationship between base station traffic load and power consumption?

The real data in terms of the power consumption and traffic load have been obtained from continuous measurements performed on a fully operated base station site. Measurements show the existence of a direct relationship between base station traffic load and power consumption.

What are base station models?

The base station models vary in their approaches and potential use cases. Hereafter, the models are grouped according to these aspects. Main component models only model the power consumption of the main base station components (power amplifier, analog frontend, baseband unit, active cooling, power supply) separately.