Reducing the cooling energy consumption of telecom sites by liquid cooling

Abstract The use of mobile data has increased and will continue to increase in the future, because more data is moving to wireless networks such as 5G. Cooling energy need is also expected to increase in indoor telecom rooms, and can be as high as the equipment’s own power consumption. The world’s first liquid Base Transceiver Station (BTS) was adopted into commercial use in 2018, in Helsinki, Finland. Conventional air-cooled BTS hardware was converted into liquid-cooled BTS equipment. Heat from the BTS was pumped out of the site room, and thus ventilation or air conditioning was not needed for the heat load from the BTS. Heat stored in the liquid was released into the ventilation duct of the building, still providing annual cooling energy savings of 70%, when compared to air cooling. In the future, 80% of the total dissipated energy, 13450 kWh/a in total, can potentially be used for heating purposes. In terms of CO₂ emissions, adapting liquid cooling showed an 80% reduction potential when compared to air cooling