Electrical Equipment / Components & Telecoms

On August 25, China Telecom released the "Energy-saving and Carbon-Reduction Green Development-China Telecom's Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutral Action Plan". The goal is to achieve the total energy consumption per unit of telecom business by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. The total carbon emissions of telecommunications business have been reduced by more than 23%. With the release of China Telecom's carbon peak and carbon neutral action plan, the dual-carbon green initiative for the communications industry has been fully launched.

Climate warming has become a common challenge facing the world. In recent years, with the continuous increase of carbon dioxide emissions, the ecological environment on which mankind depends for survival has been seriously threatened. In order to avoid catastrophic climate change, countries around the world have successively introduced relevant policies to support the realization of the "dual carbon" goal.

What is the relationship between the telecommunications industry and carbon neutrality?

In September 2020, my country clearly put forward the goal of striving to reach the peak of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, and striving for the vision of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. In March 2021, at the National Two Sessions, "Carbon Peak" and "Carbon Neutrality" were included in the government work report for the first time. The "14th Five-Year" overall plan and the outline of the overall goal plan for development prospects in 2035 clearly point out that the concept of green development is promoted, and the harmonious coexistence of man and nature is promoted.

With the clarification of my country's "carbon peak" and "carbon neutral" goals, green and low-carbon has become the main theme of future development. All walks of life are looking for low-carbon emission reduction methods and actively formulating action plans. The telecommunications industry is no exception.

In fact, when people talk about carbon emissions, the telecommunications industry is not the first industry that comes to mind, but in fact, the industry occupies a certain proportion of global carbon emissions. Research data shows that in the past ten years, with the gradual improvement of communication infrastructure and the iterative upgrade of the network, the annual emissions of each operator's network operations have exceeded 10 million tons of carbon dioxide.

It should be pointed out that 5G base stations and data centers are two major energy-consuming hardware devices. Specifically:

In terms of 5G base stations, the scale of 5G base stations is currently in a stage of rapid growth. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the end of June 2021, my country has built a total of 961,000 5G base stations. As the 5G frequency band is higher than the 4G frequency band, the loss is greater. Therefore, under the same network speed and network quality requirements, the number of 5G base stations is much larger than that of 4G base stations, and its power consumption is far more than that of 4G base stations.

In terms of data centers, with the rapid development of cloud computing, the demand for data center infrastructure is strong. In recent years, operators' enthusiasm for data center construction has not diminished. The Prospective Industry Research Institute released the "China IDC Industry Panorama Map for 2021", which pointed out that at present, my country's data center market is dominated by operators. With its advantages in network bandwidth and computer room resources, the market share is about 65%.

In fact, a data center is a complete set of complex facilities that not only includes computer systems and other supporting equipment, but also includes redundant data communication connections, environmental control equipment, monitoring equipment, and various safety devices. In order to ensure the normal operation of data center facilities, systems and equipment, data centers are equipped with equipment such as chillers and cooling towers to inhale hot air and discharge cold air, which leads to a continuous increase in power consumption.

Based on the above reasons, it has become an inevitable trend for operators to implement energy conservation, emission reduction, and green development.

Operator's "Dual Carbon" Action

It is worth mentioning that, so far, the three major operators have all released their own carbon peak and carbon neutral action plans.

1. China Unicom

China Unicom released the 14th Five-Year Action Plan for "Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality", focusing on five green development directions. The first is to promote low-carbon operation of mobile base stations, promote minimal site construction, tidal energy-saving and other technologies, and orderly increase the proportion of clean energy; the second is to build a green and low-carbon data center, reduce power supply loss and simplify distribution, and use natural cold sources for air conditioning. Improve the energy efficiency of the system; the third is to further promote the green and low-carbon reconstruction of various communication equipment rooms; the fourth is to accelerate the promotion of network streamlining and optimization, and the old equipment to withdraw from the network; the fifth is to improve the level of smart energy management.

2. China Mobile

The "Carbon Peak Carbon Neutrality White Paper" released by China Mobile clarifies the goals of energy conservation and carbon reduction during the "14th Five-Year Plan": By the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the company's total energy consumption per unit of telecommunications business, total carbon per unit of telecommunications business The emission reduction rate is not less than 20%. The company’s own electricity saving has quadrupled compared with the "13th Five-Year Plan" period to more than 40 billion kWh. By 2025, the company's own carbon emissions will be controlled within 56 million tons, which will help the economy and society to reduce emissions. The 13th Five-Year Plan will double to over 1.6 billion tons.

3. China Telecom

China Telecom’s carbon peak and carbon neutral action plan is to achieve a 23% reduction in comprehensive energy consumption per unit of telecommunications business and carbon emissions per unit of telecommunications business at the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, 4/5G networks will be jointly built and shared to save more than 45 billion kWh of electricity, and the proportion of new 5G base stations will not be less than 20%; large and ultra-large data centers account for more than 80%, and new data centers will be built PUE is lower than 1.3. In addition, in the next step, China Telecom will focus on promoting the "dual-carbon" work from three aspects: one is to build a new green cloud network and create green new operations; the other is to build a new green ecology and enable new green development; and the third is to promote green new development. Science and technology build new green support.

Write at the end

At present, the tide of the digital economy is rolling in. New infrastructure such as 5G and data centers will usher in expansion. Energy saving and consumption reduction are becoming more and more important. At the same time, operators' use of digital technology and networks to empower digital transformation will also contribute to the realization of the "dual carbon" goal. It can be said that for telecom operators, "dual carbon" is a challenge and an opportunity.