Solar PV and Biomass Resources-Based Sustainable Energy Supply for Off-Grid Cellular Base Stations

Abstract

Due to the technological revolution and higher user data demand, the telecommunication industry is expanding at an exponential rate. Fulfilling the increasing demand of energy for the rising cellular networks has become a great challenge to the network operators because of the limited reservation of fuel energy sources and the growing concern about global warming. Energy harvesting (EH) from renewable energy sources (RES) has become an overwhelming initiative to minimize energy deficiency and carbon footprints. This paper investigates the feasibility of solar photovoltaic (PV) and biomass resources based hybrid supply systems for powering the off-grid Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular macrocell base stations (BSs) in Bangladesh focusing the technical, economic and environmental issues. In addition, the green energy sharing technique has been incorporated via a low resistive path for optimal use of RES. The proposed system has enough potential to achieve long term sustainability and reduction of pollution rates by fulfilling the future energy demand of BS. In this work, Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER) simulation-based feasibility analysis is used to assess the optimal system, energy production, total net present cost (NPC), cost of electricity (COE) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission depending on different system parameters. Furthermore, the performance of the network has been evaluated in terms of throughput and energy efficiency using Matlab-based Monte Carlo simulations. Results demonstrate that the proposed hybrid renewable energy powered BSs would be a reliable and longer-lasting green solution for the telecom sector while maintaining the quality of service (QoS). Finally, an extensive comparison with other systems has also been done to justify network validity. INDEX TERMS Biomass energy, energy efficiency, energy sharing, hybrid power supply, LTE, renewableenergy-powered BSs, solar energy, sustainability. I. INTRODUCTION With the remarkable increase in the number of mobile subscribers and high-speed data demand, cellular network operators are deploying a higher number of base stations throughout the world. According to the Ericsson survey, the number of the global mobile subscriber up to the first quarter of 2019 was around 7.9 billion, with 44 million new subscribers added during this quarter, wherein LTE subscribers are 3.7 billion [1]. Currently, Bangladesh has 88 million unique subscribers and it is expected that at the The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Giovanni Pau. end of 2025, this value will be 107 million [2]. Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) mentiones that at present, the number of universal BSs is above 4 million and it is nearly double from 2007 to 2012 [3]. Base stations are the premier energy consumer of mobile networks which receive 57% of the total consumed energy [4], [5]. Over the last decades, the exponential evolution of information and communication technology (ICT) has...

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