Energy and environmental aspects of mobile communication systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates the energy consumption of mobile communication base stations over an extended period, analyzing environmental impacts and testing new algorithms and renewable energy solutions to enhance sustainability.

Contribution

It provides empirical data on energy use in mobile systems and evaluates innovative transmission algorithms and renewable energy techniques for sustainability.

Findings

Air conditioning and transmission equipment significantly impact energy consumption.

Renewable energy techniques can reduce environmental impact.

New transmission algorithms improve energy efficiency.

Abstract

The reduction of the energy consumptions of a Telecommunication Power System represents one of the critical factors of the telecommunication technologies, both to allow a sizeable saving of economic resources and to realize "sustainable" development actions. The consumption of about one hundred base stations for mobile phones were monitored for a total of over one thousand days, in order to study the energy consumption in relation to the environmental, electric and logistics parameters of the stations themselves. It was possible to survey, then, the role of the mobile communication systems in the general national energy framework and to plot the best areas of intervention for saving energy and improving the environmental impact, showing the role played by air conditioning and transmission equipments. Finally, new transmission algorithms and the use of renewable energy based techniques have been tested.