Renewable Energy Usage in the Context of Energy-Efficient Mobile Networks

International audienceDuring the last years, energy efficiency of wireless networks arises as a dominating concept to answer the huge energy demand due to the increase of mobile traffic. Currently, a new direction appears with powering mobile base stations by renewable energy sources. While most of the studies in this direction are based on simulation or theory, this paper analyzes the usage of renewable energy in a realistic environment. Our study is based on a live scenario, where real traffic measurements of a major European mobile network operator are used. The effects of renewable energy allocation and base stations switching off are evaluated in terms of on-grid energy saving and electric bill reduction. Moreover, a new algorithm that combines an intelligent renewable energy allocation and a switch-off mechanism based on renewable energy generation, storage state and price ofon-grid energy is proposed. Our results show that switching-off bases stations can achieve about 19 % energy demand reduction. Moreover, equipping base stations with renewable energy sources that generates 20 % of the total network demand can lead to 51 % reduction in the electric bill