80% reduction in CO2 emissions; 30% lower power consumption

Nokia announced the world’s first deployment of a liquid-cooled 5G base station, providing significant sustainability improvements over existing solutions. The company’s 5G AirScale Base Station has been deployed by Finnish mobile operator Elisa, enabling a potential 30% decrease in power consumption, and a dramatic reduction in CO2 emissions.

Approximately 90 percent of energy consumed by base stations is converted to waste heat, however, with a heat re-use option – where waste heat is converted and repurposed – Elisa has been able to reduce its CO2 emissions by approximately 80 percent.

In addition to the sustainability benefits of the new product, liquid-cooled sites are silent, require zero maintenance, and can be 50 percent smaller and 30 percent lighter than standard active air conditioning units. They offer operators and owners of base station sites significant savings and potentially longer base station component life.

Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, said:

“Our greatest contribution to overcoming the world’s sustainability challenges is through the solutions and technology we develop and provide. Nokia was first to introduce a liquid-cooled base station with the 2G, 3G and 4G base stations with Elisa in Finland. Now we have demonstrated the world’s first liquid-cooled AirScale 5G base station in commercial operations, making liquid cooling a reality for all network generations. This innovative solution supports operators in their quest to be more environmentally responsible while allowing them to achieve significant cost savings.”

Sami Komulainen, Executive Vice President of Production at Elisa, said:

“Elisa has set a clear target to be carbon neutral at the end of 2020. We also want to maintain our 5G leadership and continue to be amongst the top operators in the world to offer the wide benefits of this new technology to our customers. Innovations such as Nokia’s liquid cooling 5G base station demonstrate how 5G can help drive sustainability.”  

Nokia has positioned itself as a leader in providing sustainable solutions in the tech and telecom equipment space, delivering zero-emission products to over 150 customers worldwide in 2019, and has committed to decreasing emissions from its operations by 41 percent by 2030. Last year, Nokia also joined a group of 87 companies at the United Nations climate summit in committing to recalibrate its existing science-based climate targets in line with the 1.5°C warming scenario.