Reducing CO2 emissions from mobile

communications BTS Power Savings

and Tower Tube
Peter Hjorth, Nina Lvehagen, Jens Malmodin and Kent Westergren
Climate change is high on the global agenda and Ericsson is strongly
committed to doing its part by reducing the environmental impact of its
operations and by providing sustainable solutions to customers and society. For example, Ericsson is taking steps to decrease the environmental
impact of its products by improving their energy efficiency.
The authors describe Ericssons work using life cycle assessments
(LCA) to understand the total potential environmental impact and performance of its products and services, especially of CO2 emissions. They
then present two specific examples of energy-reduction solutions: BTS
Power Savings, and the Tower Tube concept for building telecom sites.

Introduction
There is a growing need to measure and
calculate the environmental impact of
products, systems, and services. Indeed,
Ericsson receives frequent requests for this
kind of information from a variety of stake-

holders, such as customers, investors and

analysts. Life cycle assessments are a useful
measurement technique for understanding
the relative signicance of a product or systems environmental performance in particular, CO2 emissions, which contribute to
global warming.

Figure 1
LCA including LCI and LCIA phases.

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26

Review108.indd 26

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Ericsson is actively working to reduce the

energy consumption of its products, in part
because this reduces CO2 emissions, and in
part because it results in lower operating
costs.

Life cycle assessments

LCAs are used to analyze the environmental
aspects and potential environmental impact
associated with a given product over the
course of its lifetime (Figure 1). This holistic
view applies to products, systems and services. Life cycle assessments can be divided into
two major phases:
inventory phase life cycle inventory
(LCI); and
impact assessment phase life cycle impact assessment (LCIA).
The LCI examines a given activity or set of
activities (often at factory sites) by studying the use of energy, materials, and land
resources, as well as emissions into the air,
water and ground. The ndings are put into
a tree structure together with the inputs and
outputs (I/O) of the supply chain and the future life cycle of the product (transport, use,
and scrapping). In the telecommunication
sector, the associated environmental impact
from ofces, travel and commuting should
also be included.
The results of the LCI (use of resources,
emissions to air, water and ground) are evalutated during the LCIA. The LCI and LCIA
have been standardized in the ISO 1404x
series of environmental management standards. The I/Os of each activity, as well as
how they might impact the environment, are
combined using LCA software. The results
are then interpreted and can be prioritized
into a list of products and activities that have
the greatest impact on the environment.
Ericsson LCAs of mobile
communications

Ericsson uses LCAs to analyze the potential

environmental impacts of its products and
services, and to understand the total energy
balance within its sphere of inuence. As an
assessment tool, an LCA reveals the relative signicance of Ericssons environmental
impact and gives the company direction
regarding areas of improvement. The scope
of Ericssons LCA work is cradle to grave;
that is, it covers every phase of a product or
systems life cycle, including raw material
extraction, production, supplier activities,
transportation, terminals, RBS site materiEricsson Review No. 1, 2008

08-01-21 16.11.41

Relative environmental impact

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als, operator and ofce activities, and end-oflife treatment.

Ericsson conducted its rst LCA for radio base stations (RBS) in 1994-1995. This
work was later expanded to include mobile
phones and core network equipment that
is, a complete second-generation mobile
communications system modeled on actual
networks in Sacramento, California (USA)
and Stockholm, Sweden. In 2002, Ericsson
also completed an LCA of a third-generation
WCDMA network. The study complied in
full with the ISO 1404x series of LCA standards. It was also peer reviewed and accepted
by independent scientists.
Early on, Ericsson chose to use CO2 and
CO2-equivalent (CO2e) emissions as preferred
environmental indicators. Whereas CO2 refers to direct CO2 emissions, the CO2e gures
include gases such as methane (CH4), which
when decomposed, turns into CO2. When
performing LCAs, Ericsson studies twelve
major categories of environmental impact.
However, because several of these are linked
to the CO2e indicator, the primary focus is
on CO2e emissions. The strong link between
CO2e and energy consumption can be attributed to the use of oil, coal and fossil gas as
energy sources.
Figure 2 shows the relative environmental impact of a WCDMA network per mobile phone subscriber and the distribution
between raw material, manufacturing, operation, and operation activities. The indicators
that relate to global warming have a greater
Ericsson Review No. 1, 2008

Review108.indd 27

&%%

impact (percentage) than other categories,

such as land use.
In the mobile communications LCAs, the
difference between CO2 and CO2e is not very
great. On average, CO2e is 3% higher mainly
due to CH4 emissions during fuel production
and from the sulfur hexauoride (SF6) and
peruorocarbons (PFC) used to manufacture
integrated circuits (IC).
Because of the strong relationship between
CO2 emissions/energy efciency, and because
telecom networks are largely energy driven,

Figure 2
Relative environmental impact of a
complete WCDMA network in 2005 and
average impact per subscriber. Expressed in absolute terms and normalized to
average impact per capita in the world
(2001). All twelve major impact categories included.

Ericsson has made energy-efciency activities

an integral part of its R&D activities, setting
aggressive targets in this area.
Ericssons LCAs have shown that an important environmental parameter is energy
consumption during manufacturing and
while operating mobile communications
equipment (terminals, RBSs, switches, and
so on).
Ericssons LCAs show that, on average,
one new GSM subscription (2006) contributes about 24kg of CO2e emissions per year

TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

BB
BCCH
BSC
BTS
CFC
CH4
CO2
CO2e
EEoLT
EoLT
GDP
GSM
HW
IC
ICT
I/O
ISO
LCA

Broadband
Broadcast channel
Base station controller
Base transceiver station
Chlorofluorocarbons (Freon)
Methane
Carbon dioxide
CO2 equivalent
Electronics end-of-life treatment
End-of-life treatment
Gross domestic product
Global system for mobile
communications
Hardware
Integrated circuit
Information and communication
technology
Input/output
International Organization for
Standardization
Life cycle assessment

LCD
LCI
LCIA
NO2
N-total
PA
PCB
PFC
PM10
R&D
RBS
RDF50
SF6
SO2
SW
TRX
TCH
TS

Liquid crystal display

Life cycle inventory
Life cycle impact assessment
Nitrogen dioxide
Nitrogen total load
Power amplifier
Printed circuit board
Perfluorocarbons
Particulate matter, particles with
diameter of 10m
Research and development
Radio base station
Resource depletion factor using a
50-year time frame
Sulfur hexafluoride
Sulfur dioxide
Software
Transceiver (transmitter + receiver)
Traffic channel
Timeslot

27

08-01-21 16.11.57

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Figure 3
Impact on global warming from completely new GSM and WCDMA mobile networks,
including the phones of subscribers and operator activities. Expressed in kilograms of
CO2e/year per average subscriber.

(Figure 3). This amount is comparable to the

CO2 emissions of an average petrol-powered
automobile driven a little more than one
hour on a motorway (125km, 10.5 liters).
The annual emissions of CO2e per mobile
phone subscription have dropped signicantly throughout the years. On average, the
emissions of the rst analog systems were
about 180kg/yr, and about 90kg/yr for the
rst digital systems.
The main contributors of energy consumption/CO2e emissions from mobile communications come from
operation of RBS hardware (including auxiliaries), cooling and power conversion;
mobile phone manufacturing, especially
the electronics: ICs, PCBs, LCDs and batteries;
RBS site materials for example, the manufacturing of antenna towers, site housings, batteries, cooling, and power equipment, such as rectiers; and
operator activities for example, ofces,
vehicles and stores.
The examples below show how Ericsson is
striving to reduce energy consumption and
cut down on the materials used to manufacture sites.

Reduced energy consumption in GSM radio

networks
Figure 4
Schematic picture of the BTS Power Savings feature and an example of power consumption over time.
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Hardware functionality and network

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28

Review108.indd 28

Ericsson launched the BTS Power Savings

feature at the end of 2007. This software
feature enables operators to manage base
transceiver station (BTS) hardware in a vastly
more energy-efcient way on average it
yields a 15% to 25% reduction in BTS power
consumption.

')

From a power-consumption point of view, a

GSM transmitter can be split into three parts:
digital signal processing;
radio power amplier (PA); and
active timeslots (TS) with one timeslot
allocated per call.
Ordinarily, there is more than one TRX in
a radio cell, and the power used for calls (active TS) varies with trafc load (Figure 4).
When trafc is light, the TCH transceiver
(TRX) might not have any active timeslots
(calls) at all, in which case only the digital
and PA parts of the transceiver need power
(Figure 4).
Ericsson Review No. 1, 2008

08-01-21 16.11.59

Clearly, networks must be dimensioned

to handle busy hours. But this means a lot
of hardware resources go unused during periods with little trafc. However, because
functions in the base station controller (BSC)
keep records and statistics of trafc load (radio trafc levels vary from cell to cell, region
to region, and from operator to operator) and
log information about available hardware resources, why not tap this information to put
unused hardware temporarily into powerreduction mode?
Software and BTS mechanisms

Ericssons solution is to monitor the number of unused timeslots in a cell. When this
gure is sufciently high (allowing for uctuations over time) the BTS power-reduction
feature begins packing active timeslots and
disabling idle TCH transceivers (Figure 4).
In essence, the power-savings mode reduces or shuts off power to all but the digital
part of the transceiver. When trafc in a cell
increases and the amount of idle timeslots
falls below a given threshold, the idle TRX
is immediately put back into service. To
avoid overly aggressive switch-on/switch-off,
a guard time has been applied between the
disabling of TRXs.

Figure 5
Ericsson Tower Tube.

Network service quality and results of

power-saving feature

The BTS Power Savings feature has been

developed so as not to affect service quality. While developing this feature, Ericsson
studied numerous other relevant functions,
such as frequency hopping and packet data
channels. The feature thus supports baseband hopping as well as synthesizer hopping
cells, albeit in different ways.
By using ctive but relevant data on trafc
variations and adding the known reduction
of hardware power, one can plot total power
distribution over time (Figure 4). For the RBS
conguration in this example, the main reduction in power consumption is around 20%.

Figure 6
Different architectural designs of the Tower Tube.

Tower Tube a new

concept for building sites
The Ericsson Tower Tube a new concept for
building telecom sites takes environmental
aspects into account from the start. The challenge was to create a concept that
is easy to place and build;
is easy to run and maintain;
is cost effective; and
has minimal impact on the environment.
Ericsson Review No. 1, 2008

Review108.indd 29

29

08-01-21 16.12.01

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Figure 7
CO2e figures, including uncertainties, for
different ICT industry sectors.

Innovative solutions, superior design

The Tower Tube introduces several innovations that challenge conventional ways of
building sites. The concrete construction
fully encapsulates the site providing space
for all equipment and an indoor climate. The
entire package of RBSs and antennas is lifted
to the top of the tower via an elevator. To
access the equipment for maintenance, technicians can easily climb the lighted, indoor
stairs. The rst Tower Tube prototype was
dimensioned for three RBSs, but with 18m2
of oor space, plus more space at the top, it
can easily accommodate additional installations. The spacious interior also constitutes a
safe and convenient working environment.
The Tower Tube sets a new standard in
terms of dimensioning: its thin walls (only
70mm) are constructed using post-tensioned
steel wires and high-quality concrete. The design also keeps material usage to a minimum
(Figure 5). For instance, the Tower Tube uses
only a tenth of the steel found in traditional
tower sites. What is more, the modular de-

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sign simplies production and handling, and

the use of concrete introduces an element of
exibility, making way for a variety of shapes,
textures and colors (Figure 6).
Cost effective, reduced environmental
impact

Compared with a traditional tower site, it is

faster and easier to deploy the Tower Tube.
Its footprint is 60% to 75% smaller, and the
site solely requires indoor equipment. Fences,
shelter, grounding, cooling and feeder cables
are all included or made obsolete. Moreover,
feeder loss is about 3dB lower than that of
a traditional site. Also, the elimination of
long feeder cables and active cooling reduces
power consumption by up to 40% compared
with traditional sites. Finally, the need for
maintenance is minimum: the Tower Tube
is
fully encapsulated, which eliminates the
need for landscaping; and
protected by a security door, which eliminates the need for security.

TABLE 1, CO2e EMISSIONS AND REVENUE (GDP) OF THE ICT INDUSTRY SECTOR
COMPARED WITH OTHER SECTORS
Global
ICT
TVs and peripherals
Other entertainment & media (paper)

30

Review108.indd 30

CO2e
1.2%
1%
1%

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Revenue (GDP)
7% (0.17)
1.7% (0.6)
3% (0.33)

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The reduced impact on the environment comes

both from improved use of materials (the design, for example, calls for only a tenth of the
steel used in traditional sites) and improved
operations (where a 40% reduction in power
consumption has direct effect). In addition, local production minimizes the need for transportation when deploying the Tower Tubes.
Potential of BTS Power Savings and
Tower Tube to reduce CO2e emissions

The potential of the BTS Power Savings feature to reduce CO2e emissions is signicant.
To date, Ericsson has delivered more than 1
million GSM RBSs, and the new BTS Power
Savings feature can be installed in nearly every such RBS deployed since 1995. If operators were to install the new software in every
installed Ericsson GSM RBS, the annual reduction of CO2e emissions would be somewhere
between 0.5 and 1 million tons. This gure
corresponds to the annual emissions of up to
300,000 petroleum-powered cars (3 tons/car).
The potential of Tower Tube installations
to reduce CO2e emissions is also signicant.
Compared to a conventional RBS site, the
Tower Tube directly reduces CO2 emissions
by about 25%. The full potential for operations at a Tower Tube site is even greater, or
about 40%. To reach this gure, the RBS
must be designed, and the network optimized, to fully capture low feeder losses. Finally, structures like the Tower Tube have a
very long lifetime, which adds up to a large
positive impact over time. Given a 20-year
lifetime, an LCA of the Tower Tube shows
Ericsson Review No. 1, 2008

08-01-21 16.12.06

that it will reduce CO2 emissions by

nearly 10 tons during manufacturing; and
between 40 and 80 tons from operations (based on two RBS congurations).
Other energy-reduction activities

Other R&D activities at Ericsson have further contributed to the reduction of energy
consumption. For example, on average, the
WCDMA RBSs produced in Q4 2006 are
35% more energy-efcient than their counterparts from 2005. The goal for year-end
2008 is that this gure should be 50%. A
comparison of the 2008 target value with actual performance in 2001 reveals an improvement in energy efciency of up to 80%.

CO2 emissions from ICT

There is an ongoing debate regarding energy

consumption and CO2 emissions associated
with the information and communications
technology (ICT) sector and the potential to
use ICT to substitute or reduce the energy
consumption and CO2 emissions of other
sectors. By combining the results obtained
from several other studies, one can analyze
the CO2e emissions of the entire ICT industry sector. These results, presented in
Table 1 and Figure 7, show that the ICT sector was responsible for only about 1.2% of
global CO2e emissions in 2005.

Ericsson Review No. 1, 2008

Review108.indd 31

Conclusion
Ericsson uses LCAs to analyze the environmental impact of its activities. Ericssons
prime focus is on CO2e emissions and energy
consumption. This is in keeping with recent
LCAs of mobile communications, which reveal that energy consumption while manufacturing and operating mobile communication equipment is the most important
environmental parameter.
Several activities at Ericsson during the
past two years have helped reduce the energy
consumption of Ericssons product portfolio. The Tower Tube, for example, is a new
concept for building telecom sites that, compared with traditional mast sites, reduces environmental impact, both in terms of energy
consumption and material used.
Similarly, Ericssons new GSM BTS Power
Savings feature reduces energy consumption
by disabling transmitters during low trafc
hours.
The potential of these two examples to reduce CO2e emissions is signicant.
Ericsson believes that ICT provides a number of solutions that can be used to substitute
physical activities and thereby reduce societys
energy consumption and CO2e emissions, for
instance through e-commerce, telepresence,
e-health, e-learning and exi-working.

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