Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 28 | Page 86

“ FINAL WORD THE POPULARISATION OF 5G HAS ALLOWED FOR INFORMATISATION AND AI INTEGRATIONS INTO EVERY FACET OF SOCIETY. electricity price can be staggered to reduce electricity fees, further reducing network construction and operation costs. Trend 4: Telecom energy will permeate various industries with the introduction of 5G Key point: Various enterprise-level scenarios require flexible power supply solutions. 5G will bring base station devices to various enterprise-level application scenarios, such as ports, mining areas, electric power, transportation and even colleges, hospitals and communities. Various application scenarios require more flexible and diversified telecom energy solutions, which drive telecom energy towards being digital, modular and flexible. Trend 5: ICT power supply convergence Key point: ICT convergence requires diversified power supply solutions. The popularisation of 5G has allowed for informatisation and AI integrations into every facet of society. IT companies have started to use CT communication networks to develop various applications. It is clear that ICT convergence is an inevitable trend. This transformation raises diversified requirements for the power supply and backup of the original sites and equipment rooms. Telecom energy needs to support the power supply, backup power assurance, heat management, space management and cabling management of both CT and IT devices, and will also face new challenges in O&M. Trend 6: AI collaboration Key point: NE and AI collaborated modelling achieves optimal TCO for energy networks. The increase in 5G sites and power consumption leads to high O&M and energy 86 INTELLIGENTCIO costs, hindering the rapid popularisation of 5G. AI collaboration technology will be crucial to solving this problem. The application of AI collaboration technology in telecom energy includes AI algorithm modelling to optimise site resource configuration for sliced networks and optimise energy efficiency as well as AI analysis to implement autonomous driving networks. Trend 7: Full-stack simplified Key point: Simplified end-to-end and full- life cycle energy networks. In the future, connections will be ubiquitous, more and more spectrums will be put into use and sites will be more densely constructed. In the 5G era, energy systems from sites to bearer networks and core networks will become increasingly large and complex, requiring simplified deployment and TCO control. In the future, simplified end-to-end and full-life cycle energy network technologies, such as one cabinet for one site, one blade power for one site and autonomous driving networks, will be widely applied. This will greatly improve the efficiency of site deployment and capacity expansion, simplify energy O&M and achieve more simplified energy networks. Trend 9: Higher efficiency Key point: Rectifier efficiency will be further pushed to the extreme. Site-level and network-level efficiency will attract more attention. Currently, the efficiency of telecom power systems is mostly improved at the rectifier level. The rectifier efficiency of mainstream vendors is 90% to 98%. In the future, the maximum efficiency will be further improved from 98% to 99% (translating into 50% less rectifier loss). However, the energy consumption of the entire site mainly occurs in the power generation system, temperature control system and power supply line. Operators will pay more attention to the improvement of site-level and network-level energy efficiency. The efficient heat exchange solution and natural heat dissipation solution will replace air conditioners and become the mainstream heat management solution. Trend 10: Trustworthiness Key point: Trustworthiness becomes an integral part of telecom energy. AI pushed telecom energy to develop from isolated sites to energy networks. Diversified power supply and backup requirements, complex deployment scenarios and digital network environments pose higher trustworthiness requirements on energy networks. Trustworthiness technologies such as safety, reliability, availability, security, privacy and resilience will become the key features of trustworthy energy networks. n Trend 8: Multi-pattern architecture Key point: Against the backdrop of diversified power inputs and outputs, multi- pattern architecture will become a trend. Currently, most power supplies do not support multi-pattern input or output. Different energy conversion devices need to be combined into one system, which has a large size, low efficiency and multiple interfaces for maintenance. In addition, the device cost and O&M cost are high. The multi-pattern architecture features higher system density and efficiency, simpler deployment and smarter O&M and is expected to be popularised in the telecom energy industry in the future. www.intelligentcio.com