What are some reasonable ways in which operators can improve the sustainability of their cell networks, whereas decreasing operational expenditures associated to power utilization?

On the latest Telco Sustainability Discussion board digital occasion (accessible on-demand right here), Turkcell’s Director of Entry Community Mustafa Karakoc supplied an in-depth view of how the service is implementing modifications in its community which might be decreasing its power use and emissions.

Turkcell has greater than 30,000 base stations throughout Turkey, and people base stations collectively devour round 900 gigawatt-hours (GWh) yearly, Karakoc mentioned—roughly the identical quantity of energy consumption as a mid-sized metropolis. It is usually clear, he added, that throughout 3G, 4G and even 5G, “the facility consumption of those applied sciences are growing, and complexities are additionally growing.”

The corporate has a acknowledged objective of utilizing 100% renewable power sources by 2030 and to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Turkcell is specializing in quite a lot of areas with a purpose to fight help its objectives of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions and reducing operational expenditures associated to power use. These embody:

–A large analysis and improvement effort. Karakoc mentioned that Turkcell is inserting a precedence on R&D associated to bettering its operations throughout a wide range of domains. The corporate has greater than 850 R&D initiatives and greater than a thousand researchers centered on sharpening its capabilities, together with power effectivity.

One such challenge, which came about final yr, was Turkcell’s A++ challenge that centered on six totally different elements of its community applied sciences, with quite a few sub-studies that delved into particulars of operations throughout website tools, the transport community, core community and numerous air-conditioning capabilities throughout the community. The modifications that had been applied because of that challenge are saving the corporate about 63.2 million kilowatt-hours, or the equal of about 2,000 websites’ power consumption per yr, Karakoc mentioned—which interprets to about $12-15 million {dollars} in annual financial savings.

–Specializing in inexperienced websites by deploying photo voltaic panels as complementary energy for base stations, as a part of a yearly deployment plan. Karakoc mentioned that Turkcell is utilizing this technique to scale back its general grid energy consumption and has a “lengthy roadmap” to extend such websites by about 5,000 websites per yr.

–Utilizing photo voltaic plant-based power. Turkcell has a three-year plan that can culminate in 2025 to have activated 300 megawatts of peak put in capability, with 54 megawatts of capability already lively. Turkcell plans to finally have greater than half of its energy sourced from photo voltaic crops. “That is actually [a] essential step for us, to go on this journey for the zero-carbon and the renewable power sources,” mentioned Karakoc. “All these capabilities, that’s very crucial for us.”

–Implementing AI-driven power saving know-how. Turkcell has additionally been exploring the usage of synthetic intelligence-enabled power saving software program capabilities inside its community, Karakoc mentioned, and has deployed that functionality to websites. At night time, when site visitors is “nearly zero”, then the system will deactivate websites, however can even mechanically reactive them as daytime utilization resumes, he defined. He mentioned that that is in use in Istanbul, the place Turkcell has many base stations and turning a few of them down throughout the night time doesn’t end in a lack of protection. That is serving to Turkcell to achieve round 10% elevated energy effectivity, he mentioned.

Turkcell additionally put collectively a challenge known as AI-assisted Strong and Resilient Vitality Saving, due to the crucial want for resiliency in Turkcell’s community amid pure disasters. Working with Ericsson, Karakoc mentioned that Turkcell centered on its energy provide items and base station utilization, in order that throughout the night time, some energy provide items are dynamically deactivated based mostly on the variety of subscribers being served; it resulted in power financial savings of round 2% with out altering any {hardware}, Karakoc mentioned—an necessary issue when operators search to scale back energy consumption not solely throughout new networks, however legacy infrastructure.

“Step-by-step, we’re going to work for [a] extra smarter and greener community, and that is our essential motivation for the options,” mentioned Karakoc.

Try the total session from Turkcell as a part of the total Telco Sustainability Discussion board agenda on-demand, by way of this website.