برآورد صرفه جویی در انرژی پتانسیل اپراتورهای مخابراتی در چین

A set of models are employed to estimate the potential of total energy saved of productions and segmented energy saving for telecom operators in China. During the estimation, the total energy saving is divided into that by technology and management, which are derived from technical reform and progress, and management control measures and even marketing respectively, and the estimating methodologies for energy saving potential of each segment are elaborated. Empirical results from China Mobile indicate that, first, the technical advance in communications technology accounts for the largest proportion (70%–80%) of the total energy saved of productions in telecom sector of China. Second, technical reform brings about 20%–30% of the total energy saving. Third, the proportions of energy saving brought by marketing and control measures appear relatively smaller, just less than 3%. Therefore, China's telecom operators should seize the opportunity of the revolution of communications network techniques in recent years to create an advanced network with lower energy consumption.

The national target of energy saving during China's 11th Five Year Plan (FYP) has been roughly achieved (Price et al., 2011). And China's 12th FYP further requires that from 2011 to 2015, energy consumption per unit of GDP (i.e., energy intensity) should be decreased by 16%. As for China's telecom operators, with the rapid growth of subscribers and telecommunications traffic in recent years, its energy consumption has been always maintaining robust increasing and energy saving has become an important threat to sustainable development. Take China Mobile, one of the largest mobile service providers in China, for example, it consumes energy like electricity, gasoline, diesel oil, and natural gas etc., and electricity accounts for over 80% of the total energy consumption. In 2011, the total energy consumption of China Mobile exceeds 1.8 million ton of coal equivalent and electricity consumption reaches over 13 billion KWh. Under this circumstance, China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), as the regulating department of China Mobile, has set China Mobile as the category of Focused enterprise from the General enterprise1 , and required China Mobile should equip full-time staff for energy saving management, periodically submit energy saving reports and evaluate energy saving effect. Meanwhile, with the constant growth of China Mobile, especially the large-scale deployment of the Three Generation network, its energy consumption may keep stable increasing in the near future, so great pressure and threats will be faced by China Mobile under the energy saving restraints from the government. Overall, the energy saving for China's telecom operators should be and have been attached close attention these years. The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced that the overall energy consumption per unit of telecom traffic for the communications industry should reduce by 10% by the end of the 12th FYP. In order to achieve this goal, telecom operators are taking effective and numerous measures in many fields. These measures have achieved some energy-saving effect. Each year telecom operators may set energy saving targets, like electricity consumption per unit of telecommunications traffic, so as to assess the work they have done and roughly estimate the saved energy at the end of the year. With regard to the targets set each year, by means of interview, we have learned that the managers and specialists of energy saving in China Mobile do not make sure whether the energy saving targets are reasonable and feasible. Therefore they are eager to exactly identify the potential for energy saving in the next few years and at least they can put forward feasible annual targets of energy saving. According to recent research, there are some methodologies to calculate the saved energy for a corporation (such as GB/T 13234-2009) and other methodologies to calculate the saved energy of technological measures (such as GB/T 13471-2008). For example, the GB/T 13234-2009 (General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China (AQSIQ) and Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China (SAC), 2009) defines the “energy saved of productions” as the index to calculate the annual saved energy for a corporation in China. However, for calculating the annual energy saving for telecom operators, there exist some problems (Yang et al., 2011b). For example, through the GB/T 13234-2009, the total “energy saved of productions” by the whole telecom operator can be calculated, but the energy saved by technological measures according to GB/T 13471-2008 only accounts for a little part (average 20–30%) of the total energy saved of productions. It is thus clear that a large disparity of energy saving exists, which has often been ignored. Put another way, the telecom operators in China almost do not exactly know how much potential of energy saving they have and where the energy saving may come from. The purpose of this study is to estimate and analyze the segments of total energy saving for telecom operators in detail, especially providing the detailed estimating segmented model for energy saved by technical advance according to the classification of communication equipment. At last we also propose some suggestions for decision makers to set proper assessment indicators and to work out better energy saving plan based on the estimation of energy saving potential. In this way, we attempt to answer the following questions: (1) where does the energy saving room come from for the telecom operators in China; (2) how to estimate the segmented energy saving potential; and (3) how much is the energy saving potential for each segment; so as to help the telecom operators in China to reasonably assess the difficulty of energy saving and scientifically determine the energy saving plan. The empirical case in this research refers to the largest provincial branch of China Mobile, which is called A company here. China Mobile has signed the Green Action Plan in 2007 and promised to reduce energy consumption. In 2010, China Mobile Limited was selected as the only one of Chinese mainland enterprises in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) for the third consecutive year (China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC), 2011). The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 presents the literature review of energy saving and its potential estimation. Section 3 deals with the calculating methodology and the data used in the empirical analysis. Section 4 proposes the empirical results. Finally, Section 5 concludes the paper and puts forward some policy implications.

In this paper, we attempt to investigate the energy saving potential of China's telecom operators. For this purpose, we develop the segment model of energy saving for telecom operators in China. The total energy saving consists of two main sources; one is from management measures and the other is from technology innovation. Moreover, management measures can be further divided into control measures and marketing, while technological innovation can be further divided into technical reform and technical advance; so four segments of energy saving are proposed. The empirical results indicate that the four segments occupy different proportions of energy saving. Specifically, we find that among the four segments, technical advance and technical reform bring the two largest part of energy saving for telecom operators, on average accounting for about 74% and 24% of the total energy saving from 2011 to 2014 in A company respectively; while marketing and control measures contribute little to the energy saving work of telecom operators. Therefore, great efforts should be made to promote the technology development and application as far as energy saving in telecom operators is concerned. Besides, as for each segment of energy saving of A company, we find they have their own distinctive features. First, as for the energy saving by control measures, lighting retrofit brings most of the energy saving. Second, marketing does not bring much energy saving, even its energy saving effect is negative. Third, as for the energy saving by technical advance, the optimization of the equipment in wireless access category possesses the biggest energy saving potential. And due to some well applied technical measures, the contribution of technical advance to energy saving may keep increasing in the near future. At last, as for the energy saving by technical reform, the transformation in main equipment may have desirable energy saving effect for the most part. In the light of the estimation of energy saved by the four segments, some policy implications may be provided for policy makers. For one thing, since the utilization rate of wireless equipment has reached a high level in some provinces of China, energy saving potential for China's telecom operators in these provinces comes mainly from technical advance and technical reform. Technical advance can bring a large amount of “natural” energy saving, which means energy saving is a non-ignorable byproduct of telecom network evolution and it may be quite large. But the attention paid to it is not enough currently. Therefore, telecom operators should seize the opportunity of the revolution of communications network techniques to create an advanced network with lower energy consumption. Meanwhile, technical reform is also a basic and traditional way to obtain energy saving. And telecom operators should evaluate the energy saving effect and feasibility of the equipment updates, and promote the successful pilot technology. For another, as for control measures, although it accounts for a small proportion of the total energy saving, the supervision work still needs enough concern. Otherwise, technical advance or technical reform may not achieve the desirable results. Therefore, we suggest China's telecom operators should strengthen the awareness of energy saving, set energy saving regulations and train energy saving behaviors in daily work. Moreover, telecom operators should combine energy saving technology and scientific management system within the enterprises, and provide a large number of advanced ICT low-carbon technologies for the whole industry and society, so as to achieve low-carbon socio-economic development in harmony with the environment.