Powering Net-Zero 6G: Packetized Energy Management for Grid-Interactive Telecom Infrastructure

The transition to net-zero 6G requires energy-management approaches that go beyond conventional RAN efficiency mechanisms. As future networks integrate AI-native operation, edge intelligence, dense deployments, renewables, and storage, the RAN will become both a growing power consumer and a source of distributed energy flexibility. This paper introduces packetized energy management (PEM) as a framework for transforming 6G infrastructure into energy-aware, grid-interactive assets. PEM represents flexible demand as schedulable energy packets that can be admitted, deferred, or reshaped according to local constraints, renewable availability, carbon intensity, price, and communication priorities. We present a PEM-enabled base-station model, a RAN architecture for PEM integration, and the telecoms virtual power plant (VPP) concept for aggregating PEM-enabled sites. Simulation results demonstrate PEM's potential for peak-aware operation, improved renewable utilization, and outage-resilient service continuity. The paper also discusses open challenges for telco-energy co-design.