At Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022, Huawei and one of its operator partners jointly announced the commercialization of the world's first Giga Green Site.
Giga Green Site, Barcelona. Image Credit: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Giga Green Site, which features optimal energy efficiency and performance, is a key part of Huawei's 5Green solutions. It uses Huawei's ultra-wideband RRU and BladeAAU Pro to cut the eight base station modules required for common sites down to just three, while also supporting more frequency bands and boosting coverage and capacity with less power consumed.
Green 5G is an unstoppable trend, driven by two pressing needs. First, Sustainable Development Goal 13 about climate action, one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations, points out the urgent demand to conserve energy and reduce emissions reduction. This is something that is generally accepted in the ICT industry along with the promotion of green networks. Second, the demand for more network capacity keeps growing as traffic surges. Therefore, 5G development must take a green path — improve energy efficiency of wireless networks while achieving optimal performance.
As a leading communications equipment vendor, Huawei continues to innovate in energy saving. It rises to the challenges of multiple frequency bands, complex networks, and co-existing radio access technologies (RATs) that come with 5G, and launched 5Green solutions to build energy-efficient Giga Green sites with excellent performance.
- Among the 5Green solutions, Huawei's third-generation Massive MIMO products fully utilize the multi-antenna technology to improve energy efficiency by 30% compared with peer products. One of the products, BladeAAU Pro, is used at Giga Green Site in Barcelona. It innovatively integrates the active and passive parts into one box, with the active part supporting 64 channels and a maximum transmit power of 320 W, and the passive part providing upgraded ports for frequency bands. This combination will meet operator requirements for full-band evolution in the next five to ten years. BladeAAU Pro features an all-in-one sub-6 GHz design, which greatly reduces the space requirements for site installation (such as in single-antenna scenarios) and can flexibly adapt to diversified deployment scenarios. This helps accelerate 5G commercial use. In addition, the signal direct injection feeding (SDIF) technology it uses improves the level of integration inside antennas, reduces feeder loss, and increases RF energy efficiency. As a result, energy consumption is reduced by 15% for the same coverage.
- Huawei also provides sub-3 GHz ultra-wideband and multi-antenna products to meet operator requirements for ultimate performance, easy deployment, and high energy efficiency in network development and 5G evolution. In terms of low frequency bands, Huawei provides the industry's first triple-low-band 4T4R RRU, which improves network experience and supports multi-band co-construction, while also reducing the required site space. As for mid-bands, Huawei provides the industry's only wideband 8T8R. Together with BladeAAU Pro and the latest Hertz platform antennas, it can provide three times the capacity, 3–5 dB better coverage, and 2.7 times more energy efficiency compared with 4T4R. This product can help operators cope with growing traffic while saving energy. For hotspot areas, Huawei provides the industry's only FDD Massive MIMO product suitable for large-scale commercial use. FDD Massive MIMO can provide five times the capacity of 4T4R, releasing suppressed traffic in high-value areas. At the demo Giga Green Site, the operator partner deployed 700+800+900 MHz 4T4R and 1.8+2.1 GHz 8T8R to upgrade network performance. The deployment increases the capacity by three times and reduces power consumption by up to 40% compared with single-band 2T2R.
“Giga Green Site sets a new benchmark for 5G construction in Europe. Huawei will continue to innovate towards better network performance and higher energy efficiency of wireless network.” Aaron Jiang, President of Huawei's SRAN Product Line concluded.
Huawei supports operators' green development strategies through comprehensive solutions that integrate green site, green network, and green operation, enabling operators to continuously increase network capacity at lower energy consumption per bit. We empower green and sustainable development through More Bits, Less Watts.
MWC22 Barcelona runs from February 28 to March 3 in Barcelona, Spain. Huawei showcases its products and solutions at stand 1H50 in Fira Gran Via Hall 1. Together with global operators, industry professionals, and opinion leaders, we dive into topics such as industry trends, GUIDE to the Future, and green development to envision the future of digital networks. For more information, please visit: https://carrier.huawei.com/en/events/mwc2022