Energy consumption and cost estimation considering renewable energy sources in integrated next-generation wireless access network

Abstract

Energy consumption in telecommunication industries is a major challenge for the network providers where most of the power consumed equipments are from the wireless access network and the optical network transmission. The non-renewable energy are the main sources of electricity such as diesel, burning fossil fuel and only a small percentage of energy comes from clean renewable energy source such as solar, wind, biomass and tidal power. Therefore, this research work is aimed to estimate the precise power consumption of an integrated optical-wireless access networks by characterizing the most power demanding equipment and providing an alternative source of a clean renewable energy to power them. The main advantage of this technique is the simplicity in which the power consumption can simply be modelled by using Matlab and to mitigates the GHG emissions of the system by hybridizing renewable energy which are solar and wind into existing energy sources and simulated using Homer Pro. The obtained results were based on Skudai-Malaysia location where 77% reduction of carbon emissions through renewable integration and 56% operational cost were achieved.