Techno-Economic Evaluation of a Stand-Alone Power System Based on Solar Power/Batteries for Global System for Mobile Communications Base Stations

Mohammed H. Alsharif
Additional contact information
Mohammed H. Alsharif: Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Electronics and Information Engineering, Sejong University, 209 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05006, Korea

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: Energy consumption in cellular networks is receiving significant attention from academia and the industry due to its significant potential economic and ecological influence. Energy efficiency and renewable energy are the main pillars of sustainability and environmental compatibility. Technological advancements and cost reduction for photovoltaics are making cellular base stations (BSs; a key source of energy consumption in cellular networks) powered by solar energy sources a long-term promising solution for the mobile cellular network industry. This paper addresses issues of deployment and operation of two solar-powered global system for mobile communications (GSM) BSs that are being deployed at present (GSM BS 2/2/2 and GSM BS 4/4/4). The study is based on the characteristics of South Korean solar radiation exposure. The optimum criteria as well as economic and technical feasibility for various BSs are analyzed using a hybrid optimization model for electric renewables. In addition, initial capital, replacement, operations, maintenance, and total net present costs for various solar-powered BSs are discussed. Furthermore, the economic feasibility of the proposed solar system is compared with conventional energy sources in urban and remote areas.

Keywords: power; energy; base station; cellular network; solar-powered GSM BS; green network (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/3/392/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/3/392/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:3:p:392-:d:93506

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().