Telecom companies look for ways to cut carbon emissions

Engineers fromSK ons, SK Telecom subsidiary, inspect repeater facilities installed in Paju, Gyeonggi. [SK TELECOM]

Telecom companies are seeking to implement technologies to counter rising energy consumption amid the global transition toward renewable energy.

Korea’s electricity demand is expected to triple by 2050 compared to 2018, according to the 2050 carbon neutrality commission. The telecom sector, in particular, is seeing growth in electricity consumption — and therefore carbon emissions — due to 5G network equipment deployment and increasing demand for data centers.

SK Telecom's greenhouse gas emission volume reached 1.05 million tons last year, up 1.1 percent on year. KT reported 10.0 percent increase to 1.34 million tons, and LG U+ reported 1.40 million tons of emissions, up 8.2 percent on year.

In order to counter the rising carbon emissions, SK Telecom said on Tuesday that it will speed up the development and deployment of carbon-cutting technologies to cut additional 70,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

The company hopes to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Aside from buying renewable energy certificates (RECs) or buying renewable energy through power purchasing agreements to cut carbon emissions, SK Telecom said that more fundamental solutions, such as making network infrastructure more energy-efficient, are needed.

The company deployed a single radio access network (RAN) system, which cuts electricity consumption by supporting both 3G and 4G connections with a single type of RAN, in its base stations starting 2019. About 30,000 tons of carbon emissions are estimated to be reduced a year, according to SK Telecom.

SK Telecom is also utilizing solar power systems at about 160 base stations and office buildings.

KT hopes to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 as well. The company implemented an energy consumption monitoring system to enhance energy efficiency in its office buildings and at data centers, and runs solar power systems at its 85 base stations nationwide.

SK Telecom joined the RE100 initiative — a global campaign to replace all electricity generated by fossil fuels with renewable energy by 2050 — in 2020 with other SK companies. KT followed suit in August this year. LG U+ hopes to join the Korean version of the RE100 campaign this year, with a goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

The three telecom companies in Korea share about 200,000 infrastructure sites to reduce damage to environment, said SK Telecom

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]