How does mobile data traffic affect the energy consumption of 5G base stations?

The explosive growth of mobile data traffic has resulted in a significant increase in the energy consumption of 5G base stations (BSs).

What is 5G BS power consumption?

The 5G BS power consumption mainly comes from the active antenna unit (AAU) and the base band unit (BBU), which respectively constitute BS dynamic and static power consumption. The AAU power consumption changes positively with the fluctuation of communication traffic, while the BBU power consumption remains basically unchanged , , .

How much power does a 5G base station consume?

That’s almost a threefold increase compared to 4G (5). One 5G base station is estimated to consume about as much power as 73 households (6), and 3x as much as the previous generation of base stations (5), (7).

What is 5G base station?

1. Introduction 5G base station (BS), as an important electrical load, has been growing rapidly in the number and density to cope with the exponential growth of mobile data traffic . It is predicted that by 2025, there will be about 13.1 million BSs in the world, and the BS energy consumption will reach 200 billion kWh .

What is a minimal 5G BS energy consumption optimization model?

Therefore, the problem can be formulated as a minimal 5G BS energy consumption optimization model, i.e., the energy consumption reduced by reasonably switching off the idle or lightly loaded BSs and reasonably associate UEs with BSs (i.e., the BS switching state and BS-UE association state scheme).

How much electricity does 5G use?

To achieve gigabit speeds, the plan with 5G is to have it operate at very high frequencies of 24-26 Gigahertz. For this reason, 5G requires millions of new so-called “small cells,” for example, transmitters in lampposts. Billions of new wireless devices will soon be available worldwide. All of the above consumes electricity.