Abstract-Nowadays, wireless access networks are already amongst the top power consumers in the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) sector. As it expected that these networks will further expand in the future due to the extreme growth in mobile devices and the high bit rate demand of the applications running on these devices, it is important to consider power consumption as a key parameter in the network design phase. In this paper, two optimization algorithms are proposed: a capacity-based heuristic which aims to reduce power consumption by responding to the instantaneous bit rate demand by the user and an evolutionary opposition-based learning algorithm focusing on the joint-optimization of power consumption and geometrical coverage. Applying both algorithms on a realistic suburban case in Ghent, Belgium, show that both algorithms are able to design an LTE-A network consuming only 24% and 29%, respectively, of the power consumed by the reference scenario which is representative for today's networks. The evolutionary algorithm outperforms the capacity-based algorithm by obtaining a 5% lower power consumption, while the capacity-based heuristic has a 2 to 3% higher coverage. Future research in joint-optimization algorithms of energy and network performance is definitely needed.