Energy-Efficient Hybrid Powered Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) for 5G

Abstract

Owing to the ever-increasing energy consumption, energy efficiency (EE) is an important parameter for next generation 5G network. The Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) is a viable solution for tackling 5G network problems in an energy-efficient manner. Integrating renewable energy with C-RAN can be a powerful tool for reducing operating costs and carbon dioxide emission. But, the regional unpredictability and intermittency nature of renewable energy can result in energy outages and worsening the service quality. As a consequence, the most reliable way is to combine commercial grid supplies with renewable energy. In this paper, we proposed a network model for the downlink C-RAN with hybrid power supplies. The goal of the proposed hybrid supply with solar and grid energy collaboration is to optimize the use of renewable solar energy by reducing grid Power Consumption (PC) and, most significantly, enhancing energy efficiency and preserving service quality. A comprehensive analysis is performed to evaluate EE performance of the proposed C-RAN under a variety of network settings. The numerical results affirm the proposed C-RAN models establishing a significant improvement in network EE compared to the conventional one.