5G base stations use up to three-and-a-half times more energy than 4G infrastructure

When people talk about 5G, they’re often talking about the enormous boost in speed you’ll get from using the new mobile network technology. What many people don’t realise, though, is that it’s also expending a lot more energy for Chinese telecom companies.

At the beginning of August, a China Unicom branch announced that it would put some of its ZTE 5G base stations to sleep between 9pm and 9am to reduce electricity costs in the city of Luoyang.

A recent white paper from telecom equipment maker Huawei illustrates the problem: 5G base stations use up to three-and-a-half times more energy than 4G infrastructure. Part of the problem is that this new generation of mobile connectivity requires more densely placed base stations.

So as China has been rapidly rolling out new 5G base stations, reaching 410,000 nationwide in June, some cities are putting the ones they have to sleep to save energy because there aren’t enough users yet.