Energy exchange among base stations in a Cellular Network through the Smart Grid

In this paper, we study the problem of minimizing the energy cost incurred by a Cellular Network Operator (CNO) in a Smart Grid (SG) environment. We consider a CNO that deploys several Cellular Base Stations (CBS) to serve a given geographical area. Each CBS is equipped with a limited-capacity battery and can be powered either by the SG or by a renewable-energy (RE) harvester. Given this topology, two-way energy flow is allowed between each CBS and the SG and between any pair of CBSs in the network through the SG. The space-time-dependent energy-buying and energy-sharing costs and the energy-selling prices are made known to the CNO in advance. Therefore, in order to minimize the total cost incurred by the CNO, we find the optimal energy-management strategy by solving a constrained optimization problem. The proposed strategy ensures that the instantaneous energy demand of each CBS and the constraints imposed by each battery are satisfied at every point in time. We evaluate the performance of the proposed solution using simulations. Our results show that a significant cost reduction can be achieved by implementing the proposed strategy.