Huawei stresses commitment to green development, energy efficiency

AMMAN — During the Green Development Solution virtual launch, held on the second day of the Win-Win Huawei Innovation Week, President of Huawei's Carrier Business Group Ryan Ding stressed the importance of prioritising energy efficiency. 

In his speech, titled "Green ICT for New Value", Ding noted the surge in energy consumption as a result of digitalisation and the rising demand for data, adding that the issue of climate change requires the information and communications technology (ICT) industry to work towards achieving carbon neutrality.

Research shows that data traffic generated by digital services is expected to grow 13-fold between 2020 and 2030, reaching 612 petabytes, Ding said.

“This means that if energy efficiency improvements are not made, the ICT industry's energy consumption and carbon emissions will see a 2.3-fold increase,” he added.

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN agency specialised in ICT, the ICT industry will need to reduce its carbon emissions by at least 45 per cent by 2030 to meet the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris Agreement's goal, Ding said. 

He also noted that improvements to energy efficiency will benefit operators in three ways. 

“First, user migration, site upgrades and network power reduction will bring them OpEx savings. Second, improved energy efficiency will support the migration of 2G and 3G users to 4G and 5G services. Third, by reducing carbon footprint, operators positively impact the environment and fulfill their social responsibilities,” he said. 

To support operators in achieving energy efficiency, Huawei proposed “the first systematic green development solution”, focusing on green sites, green networks and green operations, according to Ding.

He added that the green site solution reduces emissions and saves energy by positioning main equipment and power supply units fully outdoors, using new materials and adopting a “highly integrated” design.

The green network is mainly based on providing a network architecture that is “all-optical, simplified, and intelligent” and Huawei’s green operations’ solution “generates and distributes optimisation policies” while conserving energy and ensuring efficient network performance, Ding said.