Total Network Base Station Energy Cost vs. Deployment

Energy efficient radio networks, i.e. radio base stations and transport network mainly, are something that becomes more and more important with the increase of installed base stations globally. This study evaluates the total base station energy consumption per area (W/km²) for different cell sizes (deployments). This is done by theoretical calculations assuming a certain minimum received power at the cell edge regardless of cell size and channel model. This study shows that with just a minimal fixed power consumption overhead factor for each cell (e.g. 0.1 W per cell), it is never optimal to build a cellular network as dense as possible from an energy consumption per area point of view. Only when there is no fixed overhead at all, the optimal cell size from an energy per area perspective, is as small as possible. With a rather low fixed overhead (1-5 W), the optimal inter-site-distance is around 300-700 m. With the current (high) fixed power consumption overhead, as large inter-site-distances as possible are the most energy efficient.