PRESS RELEASE: ZTE Corporation a global leading provider of information and communication technology solutions, together with the Sichuan branch of China Telecom, has been the first to commercially deploy PowerPilot Pro’s key new features: AAU hibernation across the whole Leshan city in Sichuan province and digital indoor distribution pRRU auto-sensing in Chengdu city, abundantly further reduce 5G networks’ carbon footprint.

The Sichuan branch of China Telecom and ZTE have completed the deployment of the AAU hibernation feature first in Leshan city and later will be across the whole Sichuan province.

In August 2022, Leshan city, the first in the industry, deployed this new feature in the whole network, with over 2 thousand 5G AAUs involved.

The general manager of the wireless Dept. of the Sichuan Branch of China Telecom, Luo Ning expressed in an interview on 27th October 2022:  “In August 2022, the entire network of Leshan activated AAU hibernation, the energy consumption was reduced compared to deep sleep, saving extra over 39,000 kWh every month.”

Soon, the Sichuan branch of China Telecom and ZTE will populate this feature through the whole of ZTE’s AAUs in the networks, over 21 thousand AAUs will gain the AAU hibernation capability, compared to deep sleep, PowerPilot’s AAU hibernation feature will save extra 7 million kWh every year, equivalent to 4,200 ton CO2 emission reduction every year.

As for the digital indoor distribution system, currently, logical cells are the minimum energy-saving unit, and to improve the energy-saving efficiency of the digital indoor distribution system, auto-sensing directly deploys energy saving to the pRRU, achieving motion sensor style pRRU level auto-sensing energy saving.

In November 2022, the Sichuan branch of China Telecom and ZTE completed the pRRU auto-sensing feature verification and is in the middle of full deployment in Chengdu city, consequently energy savings reached over 25% compared to without any power-saving feature.. In the future, this feature will populate all pRRUs in the Sichuan branch of China telecom’s networks, pRRU number will reach 150 thousand. Last year, Sichuan branch of China Telecom activated pRRU AI platform power-saving in the whole network, and great results have been recorded.

PowerPilot Pro added great new features such as AAU hibernation and pRRU auto-sensing to ZTE’s power-saving solutions, cumulatively improving network efficiency on top of fundamental power-saving features, cloud platform power saving, and intelligent base station power saving. Compared with no power-saving, PowerPilot Pro saves up to 35% more energy, AAU hibernation and intelligent base station each contributed 8% and 7% more energy saving.

Moving forward, ZTE will continue in-depth research and exploration on power saving technologies, and work with global operators to build green and sustainable radio networks to boost the development of the digital economy.