On March 4, at Mobile World Congress, Huawei revealed its AI-driven sustainable energy solutions for its green telecom strategy to help operators achieve carbon neutrality, including a virtual power plant-enabled systems that turn cell sites into revenue assets, according to Huawei.
Piloted with a Finish telco, the Single SitePower Solution channels AI to optimize energy use, slashing costs by 30% to reduce grid dependence. The telecom sustainability solution allocates power and integrates renewables, to which Huawei claims this model could save the telecom industry $18 billion annually – if scaled globally.
Addressing the MWC Barcelona attendees, Li Shaolong, Huawei President of Site Power Facility Domain, highlighted they must reverse their level of today’s telecom energy efficiency consumption.
“As operators develop new use cases and expand their business portfolios, their expectations of mobile sites evolve,” Shaolong explained.
Huawei’s Single SitePower Solution is designed to cut costs and energy consumption for sustainability in telecom industry and uses AI for telecom energy savings to effectively predict and manage energy use to reduce reliance on national grids. By participating in Virtual Power Plant (VPP) networks, mobile sites can even sell extra battery power back to the grid, transforming what were once cost centers into new sources of revenue.
Huawei also worked with the Finnish telco Elisa to pilot this model, which allows sites to dynamically reallocate power usage based on demand. These renewable energy for telecom changes make sites efficient but also lucrative.
Smart Energy Management in Telecom
Zain Group’s Senior Manager for Climate Change, Ali AlGharabally, pointed to the growing importance of energy resilience, especially in the Middle East.
“Most of our sites are in harsh environments, located in deserts and running on diesel. This results in a significant need for energy to cool these sites, especially as demand for connectivity surges with the rise of 5G-A.”
Zain has set a goal to reduce emissions by 42% by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. While the ambition is bold, AlGharabally admits it won’t be easy. So far, Zain has rolled out Huawei’s hybrid solar solutions across 1,800 sites, cutting 150,000 tons of carbon emissions every year.
Huawei is also thinking ahead for green telecom towers. It is developing how to incorporate the company’s PanGu AI model into its NetEco system so that it can be even more intelligent at managing green telecom energy. Its future solar system releases will even include weather forecasting so electricity output can be predicted, making it even less expensive.
“Moving forward, introducing AI to energy supply is essential for sustaining our network operations while working towards our emissions reduction goals,” said AlGharabally.
For all regulatory green telecom purposes, particularly in sustainability-unfamiliar markets, Huawei feels the revolution is unavoidable. “The majority of operators across the world haven’t yet developed intelligent, forward-looking energy options,” Wang mentioned. Sustainable telecom networks are ready to make a jump, AI could be just what it takes to usher in a cleaner, intelligent future.
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