What is a Green Network ?

[MP_odini]

With the latest IPCC report, it is pretty clear that it is NOW or never that we need to act to remain below 1.5 or 2 degrees Celcius and we have many tools in hand to do so ! Considering the mobile industry and mobile networks, and 6G no sooner than 2030, we also need to start NOW with the tools we have in hands to reduce our carbon footprint, improve the network efficiency and reduce also the environmental impact towards a Green Network. But what is a green network and what can we do?

This blog is a follow up from Blog#1 on Green G and Telecom sustainability and Blog#2 The Path towards sustainable 6G

WE NEED TO ACT NOW

With the latest IPCC report on Mitigation in April 2022, it is becoming even more clear that we need to ACT, and as they say it is NOW or never to remain below 1.5 or 2 degrees C, as described in the diagram below. With current policies

And if we compare with industry timeline based on 3GPP release plans, 6G will most likely start with R19-R20 and will be commercial around 2030. So clearly we cannot wait for 6G to have more sustainable mobile network, we need to do whatever we can starting NOW!

WHAT CAN WE DO TODAY?

So the question is really WHAT CAN WE DO TODAY and what is a Green Network?

Within the NGA Green G team we have defined in our recently published 'The path toward sustainable 6G'  White Paper and webinar a number of topics to address for a more sustainable network and those include not just CO2 emissions but also all Green House Gas (GHG), water consumption, materials being used, land being occupied, land and air pollution and having a sustainable supply chain with circular economy and sustainable ecosystem. When looking at the network we need to consider the holistic view of the network with devices-RAN-Core and Applications and look in all the aspects that can be improved in terms of materials being used, carbon footprint of the equipment, energy consumption and efficiency of each component, leverage AI-ML to collect usage and power consumption historical data and apply optimization algorithms, tune parameters, turn off or scale down elements which are unused or unutilized. We also need to look at the broader environment: the cloud and the building. Cooling is significant in our industry in terms of energy consumption but also water consumption and impact on the environment by pulling groundwater or rejecting warmer water sometimes. Free Air cooling by injecting outside air proves to be quite efficient in terms of energy savings. Energy sources is also a big topic as we know that fossil fuel is by far the number one CO2 emitter, transition to renewable energy sources should be accelerated.

DEFINING COMMON METRICS AND KPI

There is a number of metrics and KPIs available today to measure CO2 emissions, Water Usage Efficiency (WUE) or power consumption but these metrics are not necessarily consolidated and agreed among the ICT and mobile industry. This makes it difficult for Service Providers to compare and choose products and suppliers, and it also makes it difficult for customers to pick most sustainable services.

Ideally we would want to have a series of common metrics and KPIs for all the key aspects of environmental sustainability for suppliers and service providers to use and some reference targets such as Net Zero carbon emissions. It remains confusing sometimes to know if a company is really carbon free or is offsetting its carbon emissions by planting trees or buying some carbon credits. The goal is really to reduce carbon emissions not to offset the best we can, so having clear metrics is critical! It is also difficult to be carbon free when you depend on a national grid that is heavily based on fossil fuel. So it is important to decouple power consumption and energy efficiency from carbon emissions and influence the energy suppliers to deploy more renewable energy or deploy renewable energies on premises, radio sites or data center sites.

RELEVANT STANDARDS AND OPENSOURCE

The mobile industry is very dependent on standards for interoperability. These standards have already defined a number of features to improve energy efficiency, with associated metrics and methodologies. Thanks to some 3GPP new features such as beamforming for more efficient use of the spectrum and sleep mode for energy savings on batteries, or ETSI NFV virtualization for more efficient use of the resources, 5G is now a more efficient technology than 4G, up to 90% according to latest ABI Research report. But other standards are also very relevant such as: ETSI EE for Energy Efficiency measurements, or DMTF Redfish for Telemetry and power management API that is now implemented by the Linux Foundation project ODIM. TMForum has defined in GB1013 a metric called NCF for Net Carbon Footprint per customer. ITU who is now working on Carbon Indicator. ETSI NFV has triggered a new work item on Green NFV, etc

MORE WORK TO BE DONE

As mentioned by IPCC we already have in hands lots of tools and capabilities to reduce the global carbon and GHG footprint. For the mobile industry, as explained in this blog, we also have many ways to reduce current emissions and overall environmental impact. Everything we can do should be done NOW! In parallel, the industry and the research industry, as well as politics and regulators need to work on more technical and business innovations towards Green networks. Each of us can contribute!

Marie-Paule Odini,  HPE Distinguished Technologist - NGA Green G working group Chair