In early 2021, Huawei Site Power cooperated with China Tower to carry out an innovative pilot project of smart power consumption management in Zhejiang province. This project replaced the existing traditional power system with iSitePower, which manages energy consumption of devices in a visualized manner, features precise power backup with lower investment in batteries, and supports remote management without site visits. It is a significant achievement for China Tower to save energy, reduce carbon emissions, cut costs, improve efficiency, and accelerate network construction. On August 12, 2021, the innovative practice was listed as a global best case of the Global Association for Mobile Telecommunications (GMSA).
As a communications tower infrastructure service provider, China Tower faces the following challenges when helping carriers quickly deploy 5G:
1. The site power consumption increases but is imperceptible to O&M engineers. Despite the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, the carbon emissions are still increasing because it is difficult to implement related policies.
2. Site capacity needs to be expanded for diversified services, but adding backup power involves high investment.
3. Capacity and site upgrade involve high labor costs for onsite replacement of dumb components.
4. In shared site scenarios, site reliability and security are affected due to unauthorized or incorrect device connections, and it is difficult to manage electricity fees.
iSitePower features smart power consumption management in all scenarios, helping China Tower save energy, reduce carbon emissions, cut costs, and improve efficiency.
Huawei Site Power joins hands with China Tower to integrate power electronics and digital technologies and innovate power management. iSitePower offers refined and intelligent power management with intelligent measurement, backup power slicing, software-defined power, and power consumption audit functions. These functions improve management efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and cut maintenance costs.
Intelligent measurement: visualizes device-level energy consumption and accurately locates low-efficiency sites and devices to facilitate energy-saving reconstruction.
The energy consumption of each load is visualized, and the weekly, monthly, and yearly average energy consumption of different loads and sites is compared to accurately locate low-efficiency sites and devices, making energy-saving reconstruction easier.
Backup power slicing: provides on-demand power backup based on service attributes, halving the battery investment.
On-demand power backup specific for each load by tenant, frequency band, RAT, and sector, preferentially guarantees power availability for mission-critical services and reduces the power backup duration for other services, thereby reducing battery investment.
Software-defined power: On-demand power distribution capacity eliminates the need for onsite replacement. Remote power-on/off management cuts costs.
The software defines the power distribution capacity of each load (3 A to 125 A). During device capacity expansion, circuit breakers do not need to be replaced onsite. Remote and intelligent shutdown is supported, reducing device power consumption and carbon emissions by 20%.
Power consumption audit: automatically analyzes load changes and effectively monitors exceptions.
The system intelligently analyzes the energy consumption of each load and promptly identifies abnormal consumption, ensuring reliable site power supply while guaranteeing the tower company's rental revenue.
iSitePower can be deployed in new sites to support intelligent energy consumption management. For legacy sites, Huawei iDMUs can be used to implement digital and intelligent upgrade.
According to the statistics of the pilot sites, iSitePower reduces OPEX by CNY 2700 and cuts carbon emissions by about 2.1 tons per site each year. In the future, Huawei Site Power will continue to innovate and cooperate with global partners to accelerate large-scale 5G network deployment and build green energy networks through leading energy technologies.
Note: GSMA is an industry organization in the global mobile communications field, and brings together more than 750 carriers and nearly 400 companies worldwide. It is also the organizer of Mobile World Congress and Mobile Asia Expo.
