Heat flows and energetic behavior of a telecommunication radio base station

TL;DR

This study develops and validates a thermal model of a telecommunication BTS shelter, highlighting how temperature management impacts energy consumption and suggesting measures for significant savings.

Contribution

A new thermal model for BTS shelters is proposed and validated, providing insights into energy consumption and strategies for efficiency improvements.

Findings

High internal-external temperature differences during warm months

Conditioning increases energy demand significantly

Potential for 10-30% annual energy savings through parameter adjustments

Abstract

This paper shows a study on energetic consumption of BTSs (Base Transceiver Stations) for mobile communication, related to conditioning functions. An energetic "thermal model" of a telecommunication station is proposed and studied. The results have been validated with a BTS in central Italy, showing good agreement. Findings show a substantial high internal-external temperature difference in the containing shelter, particularly during daytime and warm months, due to sources of heat (equipment, external temperature and sun radiation) and to the difficulty in spread the warmth out. The necessity to keep the operating temperatures within a given range for the correct functioning of the electronic equipment requires the use of conditioning setups, and this significantly increases the energetic demand of the whole system. The analysis of thermal flows across the shelter can help to gather further data on its temperature behavior and to devise practical measures to lower the power demand, while keeping the operating parameters in the suggested ranges. The investigation of some operating parameters of the equipment and of the shelter, such as threshold set-points, air vent area, external wall transmittance and reflectivity, suggests annual energy savings between 10% and 30%.