Renewable microgeneration cooperation with base station sleeping-mode strategy for energy-efficient operation of 5G infrastructures

Abstract

The energy consumption of the mobile network is becoming a growing concern for mobile network operators and it is expected to rise further with operational costs and carbon footprints due to the massive deployment of small cell base stations in 5G and beyond 5G networks. Renewable energy harvesting has proved its extraordinary potential in green mobile communication to reduce energy costs and carbon footprints. However, the stochastic behavior of renewable energy generation and traffic load makes the reliable operation of mobile networks challenging. Therefore, this paper proposes an energy-sustainable framework of cooperative microgeneration energy power supplies for nearby clusters of small cells to maximize the utilization of sustainable energy by intra-microgrid and inter-microgrid energy cooperation. In addition, a resource-on-demand approach of small cells based on advanced sleep modes is integrated with energy cooperation to optimize energy saving and the techno-economic feasibility of microgrids. The proposed solution of microgeneration energy cooperation framework with a resource-on-demand strategy optimally shares surplus energy between microgrids via physically deployed resistive transmission lines under a practical energy loss model and restrains the mismatch between traffic arrival and energy production. Exhaustive simulation is performed to examine the optimal system performance, carbon emissions performance, energy savings, and cost assessment. Results suggest that the proposed solution performs effectively in terms of cost, emissions, and energy savings.