Huawei's LCA activities cover every phase of the lifecycle of our products with a focus on the offerings most extensively used by operators such as radio base stations for mobile networks and broadband access products for fixed networks. An important finding from the LCA is that, for a typical base station, about 60% of carbon emissions occur in its operating phase. 

By analyzing the live network data of multiple customers, Huawei found that electric power was the major contributing factor to energy consumption by operators. We further discovered that the bulk of electric power-more than 70% for mobile networks and more than 40% for fixed networks-was used at the access layer, including radio base stations and broadband/narrowband access nodes. 

Based on the LCA findings, we optimized the energy use and emission indicators for end-to-end network products, with a focus on the access layer. Today all our products can achieve more than 30% energy savings compared to traditional solutions in the industry.

Reduced energy consumption for base station equipment 

Significant reduction in energy use and emissions is achieved through a range of innovations, e.g. improved power amplifier efficiency, intelligent shutdown, increased working temperatures of base stations to cancel the use of air conditioning, and deploying more distributed base stations and integrated shelters, among other initiatives. 

Reduction of wireless networks and sites
 
Huawei's SingleRAN Solution enables true convergence of networks. It is the industry's first commercialized solution that saves energy through network convergence and simplified energy-consuming nodes. The solution reduces not only the number of sites, but also the number of wireless networks, leading to at least 60% lower emissions. 

Energy savings in fixed access nodes 

With the three-fold green design of low heat emission, thermal dissipation and heat resistance, a Huawei millionnode green broadband network can save more than 200 million kWh power per year, equivalent to the all-year power consumption of about 250,000 households in China.

Less network nodes and central office equipment 

Energy savings are enabled through, among others, All-IP architecture, MSC (Mobile Switching Center) server pools and HLR (Home Location Register) distributed data centers. Statistics show that by using All-IP architecture, the operating cost can be cut down by 20% as compared to traditional TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) architecture, and 20% of that savings is accomplished through the reduction of energy consumption (electricity). 

Reduced energy use for equipment 

A key measure for energysavings in the central offices should be the replacement of traditional servers with blade servers. This achieves as igni f icant reduct ion in hardware energy consumption. A practical application reveals that a service platform based on blade servers can reduce total power consumption by 40% and the footprint by 50% while enhancing the performance by 40%.

Less network nodes and central office equipment 

After the introduction of ASON (Automatically Switched Optical Network), by changing the network topology and w i t h a reasonable allocation service load, the effective utilization rate of band width can be lifted from about 33.6% to 75%. As a result, energy efficiency is significantly
increased. 

Reduced energy use for equipment 

Eco-friendly components are created by your innovative designs such as the ASIC (Application- Specific Integrated Circuit) basic process evolution, high integration of chips, energy-saving software control switches, dynamic power management,and voltage/electric current/ frequency optimization, etc. In addition, further energy savings for systems are achieved by enhanced temperature adaptability and the decreased need for air conditioning central offices.

Cooling is a fundamental issue for highly distributed access equipment. Thousands of air conditioners are putting both emission and power consumption pressure on operators. For new access nodes, the ideal way to cool is to use a natural direct ventilation system. For example, an outdoor directly-ventilated cabinet with such a free cooling solution can save almost all the energy used in traditional cooling, provided the air quality and temperature are desirable.

Underground cooling is another example of a direct natural ventilation solution. Based on tests conducted in a customer's network, the coefficient of performance (COP) of the underground cooling cabinet was 108. It showed underground cooling as an effective way of providing cooling. The effect is better than the direct ventilation method which had a COP = 60 as a comparison.

The cooling power consumption of a central office or data center can be as high as 45% to 50% of the total power consumption, thus the application of heat management for improved cooling efficiency at central offices becomes crucial for energy savings.

Our Heat Management Solution for central offices includes: 

Zoning 

Equipment layout is optimized based on a respective temperature range, and ambient temperature is raised to reduce power consumption. 

Smart fan system 

Cool air is allocated based on the power consumption of different equipment. This is easily implemented and applicable to a wide range of equipment with up to 20% energy savings. 

Precise return air

The heating path is separated from the cooling path to avoid mixing of the two flows. Direct ventilation Processed outdoor fresh air is pumped in to reduce the need for air conditioning. 

Through close cooperation with a leading Italian operator on the issue of central office heat management, our use of direct ventilation, plus precise return air, enabled fresh air cooling that led to a 20% to 40% energy savings.