Driving Efficiency

For years, a topic of intense interest in all branches of industry has been how to increase efficiency in order to reduce costs. In today’s competitive environment, I believe that saving on energy costs is one of the keys. A primary reason is the steadily dwindling availability of energy resources. It’s happening across all fields – industry and end consumers are affected by high energy prices worldwide, which, as we all know, have literally exploded over the past several years. With this in mind, we are all called upon to use resources sparingly. This also applies to the broadcasting industry. Environmental policies are one reason: To meet more restrictive CO2 requirements, improvements are needed not just in end-user equipment but in transmitter systems as well. And it is widely acknowledged that the prudent use of resources is a very large financial concern for network operators.

In today’s competitive marketplace, no network operator can afford high operating costs. This makes energy efficiency and the resulting reduction of power consumption by transmitter systems a decisive factor. More and more countries worldwide are also making the reduction of their carbon footprint an objective. With these criteria in mind, Rohde & Schwarz began developing higher-efficiency broadcasting systems quite awhile ago. In the field of test and measurement equipment, we believe we have taken an important step by integrating multiple instruments into a single unit. For example, our new portable R&S®ETH combines a TV analyzer and a spectrum analyzer in one box. The instrument saves space, setup time and logistics effort. Moreover, Rohde & Schwarz instruments are a very safe investment because while they are eminently capable of handling today’s most important transmission methods, they are just as ready for future ones. This clearly shows that we are continuing down the path that we previously set out on with the R&S®ETL TV analyzer.

Let’s express this efficiency in real numbers. By implementing the latest generation of LDMOS technology, we have been able to raise the overall efficiency of our high-power transmitters by more than 20%. That is by far the best figure worldwide for the energy efficiency of today’s TV transmitters. All parts of the system have been designed with optimized energy consumption in mind – the carefully selected power transistor, the power amplifiers, the cooling system, the power supply, and the system controller. This transmitter concept enables customers to reduce energy costs significantly each year when a product lifetime of 15 years and more is factored into the equation. Furthermore, companies will profit more and more from the tax advantages because life-cycle costs generally play a more important role than the purchase costs.

To see how this works, take the following example: A 5 kW DVB-T transmitter saves about 50,000 to 60,000 kWh per year thanks to its high efficiency. Converting these figures to euros at current energy prices quickly shows that the savings in energy costs over the transmitter’s lifetime can add up to as much as the investment costs of the transmitter.

The IT and wireless communications industry is already setting an example, and other industries will follow. Broadcast operators will also venture down this path because lower energy costs are certainly not anticipated in the long term.

Jürgen Nies, Head of Broadcasting Division at Rohde & Schwarz