Cell tower based profile switching on Android Pie

It seems, that detecting cell towers isn't possible in Android Pi anymore, when location services are disabled. According to the answer at https://tasker.helprace.com/i301-cell-near-does-not-work-in-android-9 i must enable location services all the time, wo get this working. Its also stated, that this does not use GPS. But isn't it in this case more accurate to switch to location based switching, instead of only cell tower? To my understanding, this would switch the profile in a radius of for example 300 meters around my position. But isnt this using more battery power? Or is turning on location services not using my battery at all, instead some app request that location? And does the app request dictates the accuracy level? Could you please give us some advice, whats the most battery friendly way is with Android Pie?