In this paper, a power consumption model for both macrocell and microcell base stations is proposed. This model is validated by temporal power measurements on actual base stations, and an excellent agreement is obtained. Furthermore, the power consumption's evolution during the day is investigated by means of these measurements. The energy efficiency of three different wireless technologies is compared namely mobile Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, Long Term Evolution and High Speed Packet Access. With the model proposed, the deployment tool Green Radio Access Network Design is implemented, which allows to design an energy-efficient access network for a predefined area. In general and with the assumptions made, a macrocell base station consumes about 4.4 times more than a microcell base station. However, a microcell base station is less energy efficient than a macrocell base station because of its lower coverage range. Despite this, it is still useful to introduce them in the network as the same coverage can be obtained with a lower total power consumption than with a network where only macrocell base stations are used. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.