Dimensioning of Zero Grid Electricity Cellular Networking with Solar Powered Off-Grid BS

The continuous deployment of cellular base stations (BSs) is forcing the energy consumption in a wireless network at a staggering rate. This remarkable rise in energy utilization has become increasingly important for the mobile operators due to the significant economic and environmental aspect. The unavailability of reliable electricity grids push the telecom operators to install diesel generators (DG), which not only increases operational expenditure but also contributes to the considerable amount of carbon footprints. This paper aims to address sustainability of renewable power resources and ecological issues for off-grid cellular BSs. We consider all the macro BSs in Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular network are solely driven by the renewable energy source such as solar energy and equipped with sufficient energy storage devices along with energy management units (EMU). In particular, we analyze the dimensioning of stand-alone capacity of on-site PV panel, power electronic converter and batteries based on the daily energy need of the BS. Three key considerations have been discussed throughout the study using HOMER optimization tool: optimal solar architecture, energy yield analysis and the cost analysis. Simulation results show that the proposed solution ensures 100% energy autonomy and long-term energy balance for the LTE macro BS.