Waste Factor and Waste Figure: A Unified Theory for Modeling and Analyzing Wasted Power in Radio Access Networks for Improved Sustainability

This paper introduces Waste Factor (W), also denoted as Waste Figure (WF) in dB, a promising new metric for quantifying energy efficiency in a wide range of circuits and systems applications, including data centers and Radio Access Networks (RANs). Creating and managing 5G and future 6G networks that are energy-efficient is of paramount importance as the wireless industry evolves to become a major consumer of energy. Also, the networks used to connect data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) computing engines with users for machine learning (ML) applications must become more power efficient. This paper illustrates the limitations of existing energy efficiency metrics that inadequately capture the intricate energy dynamics of RAN components. We show here that W provides a generalized analysis of power utilization and energy waste at both the component and system levels for any source-to-sink communication system. We delineate the methodology for applying W across various network configurations, including multiple-input single-output (MISO), single-input and multiple-output (SIMO), and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and demonstrate the effectiveness of W in identifying energy optimization opportunities. Our findings reveal that W not only offers nuanced insights into the energy consumption of RANs but also facilitates informed decision-making for network design and operational efficiency. Furthermore, we show how W can be integrated with other key performance indicators (KPIs) and key value indicators (KVIs) to guide the development of optimal strategies for enhancing network energy efficiency under different operational conditions. Additionally, we present simulation results for a distributed multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) system at 3.5, 17, and 28 GHz, demonstrating overall network power efficiency on a per square kilometer basis, and show how overall W decreases (e.g., energy efficiency increases over the entire network) with an increasing number of base stations and increasing carrier frequency. This paper shows that adopting W as a figure of merit (FoM) can enable the design of more sustainable next-generation wireless communication networks, paving the way for greener and more sustainable, energy-efficient 5G and 6G technologies.