Towards a flexible and future-proof power model for cellular base stations

While reducing the power consumption of cellular systems is an important objective, the field lacks a good power model in order to evaluate the different power-saving options. This paper motivates the need for such a model by looking at the requirements in flexibility as well as the shortcomings of existing models. A new power model structure is proposed in order to assess the power consumption of traditional base stations, their extensions, and alternative architectures such as large-scale antenna systems. This paper introduces the main base station components playing a role in the total power consumption. It presents a power model hierarchical structure based on different abstraction layers, as a way to combine accuracy of the model with user-friendliness when defining the model parameters. The different model layers and parameters are further described and will lead to a complete model after adding power numbers and scaling rules.