IBC2024 Tech Papers: Reducing the energy consumption of terrestrial DAB transmission

Many broadcasters have recently developed carbon reduction and net-zero strategies. Reducing energy consumption will help meet net-zero targets with significant financial and carbon reduction savings. The BBC has recently published its carbon reduction strategy and plans to reduce its energy consumption on UK terrestrial platforms by 28% by 2030. The BBC terrestrial transmission networks in the UK are owned and operated by its transmission partner Arqiva who together with the BBC are investigating a range of energy saving initiatives.

However, measures taken must be proportionate to the benefits whilst maintaining minimal impact on the audience. Improving the efficiency of the terrestrial networks can be achieved by deploying new, more efficient transmitters but it can be preferable to optimise existing, already operational equipment. Improving existing equipment avoids the carbon impact and cost of replacement. Finally, efficiency measures must maintain compliance with regulatory requirements and must not compromise the long term reliability of equipment.

This work evaluates the opportunity for a trade-off between modulation quality and energy consumption. The impact of modulation error ratio (MER) on DAB reception has been investigated through theoretical modelling and validated using laboratory testing with channel simulation. The results from these studies show that...