Seven Ministries Issue Plan to Cut Energy Use and Boost Sharing of Telecom Base Stations

The Cyberspace Administration of China and six other government departments have jointly issued the Implementation Plan for Promoting Coordinated Digital and Green Transformation (2026-2030), which sets out measures to advance energy conservation and carbon reduction in the construction of telecommunications base stations.

The plan requires the adoption of energy-efficient hardware such as low-power chips and high-efficiency power amplifiers, and the gradual introduction of cooling technologies including liquid cooling and natural cold sources to improve the energy efficiency of base stations. It also promotes the deployment of centralized radio access network architectures, enabling the sharing of baseband resources and reducing the need for supporting facilities such as equipment rooms, power supplies, and air conditioning.

The plan calls for refined management of base station energy consumption during operation, with innovative applications of load-aware, intelligent control, and dynamic energy-saving technologies to precisely match base station load with power supply demand. In addition, it seeks to deepen the sharing of base stations and infrastructure, encouraging measures such as minimalist network architecture optimization, staggered electricity usage, and priority consumption of green power to achieve more intensive base station layouts and cleaner energy supply.