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Building a better future

With climate change high on the global agenda, manufacturers constantly need to build on reducing the environmental impact of their products by providing sustainable solutions to customers.

March 12, 2008

Environmental design needs to address not only the product, but also its social and economic impact.

With climate change high on the global agenda, manufacturers constantly need to build on reducing the environmental impact of their products by providing sustainable solutions to customers.

But whilst a growing number of environmental power evangelists deliver the same sermon promising a better future, full of green and pleasant lands, few companies can deliver a message that encompasses not only the environmental, but the social and economic impact on the planet too. Fortunately, many nations are already aware of the fragility of our environment, perhaps none more so than the Nordic countries.

Nordic culture has a close affinity to the environment and its people are well known for their efforts to preserve nature. Today it has become trendy to talk about the environment, whereas Ericsson claims to have taken this approach a long time ago by striving to improve the environmental aspects of all its products - from manufacturing, through the reduction of product energy consumption levels, to end of life disposal.

But there's also the human dimension to consider. Although design for environment (DfE) is often connected with products, it's important to remember that there's a design engineer behind the product too. A clean design can only be successful if the designer has a full understanding of the global benefit of working this way.

Ericsson Power Modules' DfE policy drives the design and development of high efficient dc/dc power modules that are said to decrease the energy consumption of the end user equipment, resulting in lower environmental impact and life cycle cost. This not only affects the energy bill, but also the design, dimensioning and cost of other parts of the complete installation, such as cooling fans and air conditioning, heat sinks, real estate requirements, power supplies and battery back up capacity. Higher efficiency in the dc/dc power modules can contribute to lower total cost of ownership for the end user and a more resource efficient society.

Environmental footprint
"Ericsson tries to make the system more efficient from day one," explained Ericsson Power Modules' marketing director Patrick Le Fèvre. "This is not only to improve cost, but also to ensure our environmental footprint is as small as possible. Everything we have done has been driven directly by this philosophy. We don't have any strict guidelines to guarantee that the final design meets this requirement. Instead, we develop the basic tenet stating that every new radio base station (RBS), for example, has higher efficiency and is designed to reduce the environmental impact - including the use of different types of 'green' energy."

Le Fèvre avows that Ericsson was the first company to deploy solar energy at commercial level by understanding the best way of reducing energy consumed by the RBS in different environments.
"Those people that say everything should be powered by bio fuel or solar energy are wrong because it cannot all be based on one technology alone. Instead, it needs to be a combination of different energy technologies so we try to guide our customers to use the best energy available at site."

Digital techniques
To counter equipment heating in base stations, Ericsson has launched a new solution to reduce the wasted energy used to cool RBS' and power amplifiers. Called Tower Tube, the aptly named concept employs the natural laws of thermodynamic and chimney effects. The Tower Tube houses base stations and antennas, fully encapsulating them in an energy efficient, environmentally friendly and more aesthetically pleasing tower. It can be built in a variety of shapes and sizes, with customised finishes that make it a natural fit for any landscape.

"Tower Tube addresses the question of how to eliminate the need to cool radio base station equipment," continued Le Fèvre. "The initial reaction from the designer will be 'no, it's impossible because the high levels of integration cannot survive without cooling'. However, Tower Tube is cooled in a natural way without the need for fans or air conditioning. The chimney effect pulls air from the ground to the top of the tower by using the difference in temperature between the top and the bottom to create air turbulence."

The Tower Tube's construction requires a 5 to 6m deep foundation, which produces far lower temperatures compared to those on the surface. Ericsson unveiled the first experimental Tower Tube installation recently in Kista, Sweden's 'Silicon Valley' near Ericsson's headquarters.
"This is one way of reducing the energy consumed by the equipment during its lifetime and it all stems from making the design less harmful to the environment," stated Le Fèvre. "Ericsson helps to influence the way in which people consider how to design RBS equipment whilst reducing the traditional 'force' cooling methods that has been used up until now."

Le Fèvre envisages that power management and power control will increasingly use more digital techniques in the coming years and that the combination of analogue and digital power control will generate many benefits for end user applications. For him, the future of the RBS lies in moving from static to dynamic power systems.
"It's now possible for system designers to control power management down to the silicon level in terms of controller ICs or DSPs that can perform energy management and control far more efficiently. Ericsson considers the many ways in which its customers can benefit by adding digital control to our system solutions - from the front end to board level."
In essence, Ericsson combines many technologies to promote its green awareness of designing for the environment. But, as Le Fèvre points out, the company's philosophy goes beyond merely satisfying environmental requirements.

"We strive to reduce the digital divide between the world's populations," he concluded. "However, we are also mindful that one sixth of the world's population has no access to drinking water, so we have to keep things in perspective. Part of Ericsson's culture is about making it possible for those people living in remote and rural areas of third world countries to gain access to the kind of communications technology that most of us take for granted. It's important to make a big contribution to improve their community, but it's also difficult to express where you put the commercial benefits versus real human issues. So whilst it's important to limit your environmental impact, it's equally important to ensure we provide a benefit to the overall community too."

Author:
Mike Richardson

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