Green ICT

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the related problem of climate change have received large interest and concerns during the last years. Based on the vast research efforts to model and estimate the climate change, it has become clear that GHG emissions need to be drastically diminished during the coming decades to avoid a climate change catastrophe.

ICT is worldwide responsible for a considerable and quickly increasing energy footprint on its own:

• 4% of the worldwide primary energy consumption is caused by ICT (production, use and end-of-life)
  • Expected: 8% in the next 10 to 15 years (if no precautions are made)
• 9% of ICT consumption is caused by the wireless access networks
• Energy consumption within wireless access networks
  • 10% consumed by user terminals such as mobile phones, laptops, etc.
  • 90% consumed by base stations

This indicates that it is very important to focus on the energy consumption of wireless access networks and more specifically of the base stations!

Green ICT concentrates on the characterization, development and optimization of green energy-efficient wireless access networks. A green energy-efficient wireless network is a network where not only the energy consumption is minimized but also the exposure of human beings to electromagnetic radiation. As increasingly more radio frequent sources are becoming active, the latter is becoming an important issue and many local authorities, therefore, constituted directives to limit electromagnetic radiation.

In this research the following topics, amongst others, will be investaged:

• The energy efficiency of a base station for various wireless technologies such as mobile and fixed WiMAX, UMTS, HSPA, LTE, WiFi, etc. is studied and compared. To determine the energy efficiency, both the coverage range and the power consumption of the base station need to be investigated.
• The energy efficiency of different types of base stations such as macrocells, microcells, picocells and femtocells is studied to determine the energy consumption in the overall access network
• Influence of the traffic on the energy efficiency of the base station
• Influence of new techniques such as sleep modes and MIMO on the energy efficiency of the base station
• ...

The major aims of this research are to develop an energy efficiency model for base stations of various wireless technologies and, based on this model, a tool which allows to design and optimize green wireless access networks with minimal energy consumption and exposure of human beings to electromagnetic radiation.