Energy Profiling and Analysis of 5G Private Networks: Evaluating Energy Consumption Patterns

TL;DR

This paper investigates the energy consumption patterns of private 5G networks through experimental profiling, aiming to support sustainable and cost-effective private network deployment for future 6G systems.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed energy profiling of private 5G network components under various conditions, addressing a key research gap.

Findings

Identified energy consumption variations across network components

Provided insights into optimizing energy efficiency in private 5G networks

Supported the development of green private network architectures

Abstract

Private 5G networks provide enhanced security, a wide range of optimized services through network slicing, reduced latency, and support for many IoT devices in a specific area, all under the owner's full control. Higher security and privacy to protect sensitive data is the most significant advantage of private networks, in e.g., smart hospitals. For long-term sustainability and cost-effectiveness of private 5G networks, analyzing and understanding the energy consumption variation holds a greater significance in reaching toward green private network architecture for 6G. This paper addresses this research gap by providing energy profiling of network components using an experimental laboratory setup that mimics real private 5G networks under various network conditions, which is a missing aspect in the existing literature.