On interdependence among transmit and consumed power of macro base station technologies

Dynamic adaptation of the base stations on/off activity or transmit power, according to space and time traffic variations, are measures accepted in the most contemporary resource management approaches dedicated to improving energy efficiency of cellular access networks. Practical implementation of both measures results in changes to instantaneous base station power consumption. In this paper, extensive analyses presenting influence of the transmit power scaling and on/off switching on instantaneous macro base stations power consumption are given. Based on real on-site measurements performed on a set of macro base stations of different access technologies and production years, we developed linear power consumption models. These models are developed by means of linear regression and precisely model the influence of transmit power on instantaneous power consumption for the second, third and fourth generations of macro base stations. In order to estimate the potential energy savings of transmit power scaling and on/off switching for base stations of different generations, statistical analyses of measured power consumptions are performed. Also, transient times and variations of base stations instantaneous power consumption during transient periods initiated with on/off switching and transmit power scaling are presented. Since the developed power consumption models have huge confidence follow measured results, they can be used as general models for expressing the relationship between transmitted and consumed power for macro base stations of different technologies and generations.