Accounting for Energy Cost When Designing Energy-Efficient Wireless Access Networks

Greta Vallero, Margot Deruyck, Michela Meo and Wout Joseph
Additional contact information
Greta Vallero: Department of Electronics and Telecommunications (DET), Polytechnic University of Turin, 10129 Turin, Italy
Margot Deruyck: Department of Information Technology, Ghent University/IMEC-WAVES, Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 15, B-9052 Ghent, Belgium
Michela Meo: Department of Electronics and Telecommunications (DET), Polytechnic University of Turin, 10129 Turin, Italy
Wout Joseph: Department of Information Technology, Ghent University/IMEC-WAVES, Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 15, B-9052 Ghent, Belgium

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-21

Abstract: Because of the increase of the data traffic demand, wireless access networks, through which users access telecommunication services, have expanded, in terms of size and of capability and, consequently, in terms of power consumption. Therefore, costs to buy the necessary power for the supply of base stations of those networks is becoming very high, impacting the communication cost. In this study, strategies to reduce the amount of money spent for the purchase of the energy consumed by the base stations are proposed for a network powered by solar panels, energy batteries and the power grid. First, the variability of the energy prices is exploited. It provides a cost reduction of up to 30%, when energy is bought in advance. If a part of the base stations is deactivated when the energy price is higher than a given threshold, a compromise between the energy cost and the user coverage drop is needed. In the simulated scenario, the necessary energy cost can be reduced by more than 40%, preserving the user coverage by greater than 94%. Second, the network is introduced to the energy market: it buys and sells energy from/to the traditional power grid. Finally, costs are reduced by the reduction of power consumption of the network, achieved by using microcell base stations. In the considered scenario, up to a 31% cost reduction is obtained, without the deterioration of the quality of service, but a huge Capex expenditure is required.

Keywords: wireless access network; energy price; demand and response; energy efficient; power consumption; LTE-Advanced; power grid; renewable energy; solar energy; energy storage (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: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/3/617/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/3/617/ (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:11:y:2018:i:3:p:617-:d:135627

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Cassie Shen

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