ITU and Huawei - Building Better Connected World, Making Network Greener

The International Telecom Union (ITU) and Huawei jointly organized the ICT Energy Efficiency Forum in Madrid, Spain on 11-12 May with the theme "Building a Better Connected World, Making Network Greener."

Energy executives from global leading operators such as Vodafone, Orange, Telefonica, China Mobile, KPN, DT, and AdNet Telecom as well as industry experts from consulting organizations Frost & Sullivan and DCDI shared their insights on topics including energy efficiency standards for green ICT networks. The operators presented their visions and practices for energy efficiency improvement, and promote innovative technological solutions to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emission.

ITU and Huawei Jointly Held the ICT Energy Efficiency Forum in Madrid, May 11-12, 2016

Telecom usages explodes along with rapid development of the digital society. ICT industry players are facing increasing challenges in handling traffic booming generated by more customers’ services delivered thanks to new technologies such as 4G coming 5G, Fiber to the home, cloud computing, while reducing society CO2 emissions.

Dr. Ahmed Zeddam, Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 5, presented the standards which are being developed within ITU-T Study Group 5 “Environment and Climate Change”. Dr Zeddam also highlighted ITU's efforts and achievements in promoting the ICT industry to slash energy consumption and proposed the NIEE as an international standard for measuring network energy efficiency, expecting to efficiently help operators measure the energy efficiency of live networks and formulate more feasible energy efficiency improvement plans.

Dr Fang Liangzhou, Vice President, Huawei Network Energy Product Line, introduced the Future-oriented Smart Network Energy Solution. With big video and big traffic challenges, more energy consumption, architecture evolution, and complex O&M management are the must-be-solved issues. Implementing the "Bit Manage Watt" approach, network energy systems will be more efficient, reliable, and smart, power supply architecture will adapt to ICT network development, and multiple energy inputs and system outputs will be supported. By leveraging the Soft Defined Power technology, network energy will evolve in the digital, networked, and smart way. Zero network interruption and zero energy consumption will be made possible in future.

Fang Liangzhou introduced the Future-oriented Smart Network Energy Solution

Top Telecom carriers shared their visions of energy stakes and ambitions.

• Vodafone: Vodafone takes very seriously energy efficiency improvement in mobile network evolution. Kyriakos Exadaktylos, Head of Network Standards, Vodafone shared its energy evolution approach and successful experience regarding the cooling solution, AC/DC conversion, green energy, and intelligent management. He put emphasis on the opportunity we have as in industry to make 5G standard a true differentiator when it comes to energy efficiency.

• Orange: Jean Claude Bourgoint, VP of Social Responsibility & Green at Orange Group, presented the achievements of the energy transformation “Orange Green ITN 2020” program and the targets for the next five years. Orange underlined the green partnership set up with Huawei since December 2013 and highlighted the challenge for ICT industry of “Zero Watt at Zero Load” paradigm.

• Telefonica: Gabriel Bonilha, Head of Network Infrastructure Efficiency, Telefónica Group, talked about the global energy efficiency program as well as the practices and investments of the company in energy efficiency improvement in recent years and year to come. He proposed establishment of energy efficiency standards and healthy cooperation between operators.

• China Mobile: Mrs Li Haibin, Director of Division of Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction, stated that China Mobile has started a green action since 2008, introduced 53 strategic partners involved, and established energy efficiency standards before purchasing equipment to roll out greener wireless networks, build greener data centers, and deploy more energy-efficient facilities, thereby delivering greener services and smarter applications.

Concerning energy efficiency improvement of data center infrastructure, Dan Scarbrough, Co-founder of DatacenterDynamics stated that modular data centers and modular UPS that feature high efficiency and density will better suit the demand of rapid business development. Zhu Hua, Tencent Director of Data Center Technology Development entity, introduced modular approach of data center architecture –, that will enable easier and quicker deployment and will be the trend in a near future.. Free cooling and automated O&M will be part of core competence.