BTS Power Consumption And Alternative Solution

Mon Feb 14, 2011 | By Absar Taqvi

"Roughly 89 percent of the power consumption comes from the radio BTS”, says Claudio Frascoli, Head of strategic Marketing for North America for Nokia-Siemens Network.

“You really have to be within 15 degrees of the equator for solar to be a viable full-time alternative for power”, says Rich Garafola, director of sustainable power solutions at Alcatel-Lucent.

Considering the above two comments, I feel solar energy might not be a bankable option for them but we would be prudent to take it into consideration.

Cooling systems also takes a viable part of power; normal shelter temperature is around 20-25 degrees, though there is not considerable performance degradation if the temp is around 35 degrees, worrying factor is technicians might not work at that temperature.

I found a beautiful picture while searching for one to fix the display. It is an Ericsson 'eco site' deployed in Italy for Telecom Italia.

Once this discussion broke out on one of Zumbeel’s forums, a fellow telecom engineer added:

Increasing the size of backup batteries can be a solution but that has its issues; if you increase the backup size i.e. AHs u need that much of more energy to fill-in those batteries first (that also consumes exra fuel from Gennys).

Further, high temperatures for indoor BTS can be the cause of reduced coverage and other RF-optimization issues. In our country even low-voltages is also an issue due to peak summer.

On its official Youtube channel, Alcatel-Lucent posted a video on alternatie energy solution which I am sharing here: