DSA-based energy efficient cellular networks: Integration with the smart grid

Abstract

Smart Grid (SG)-aware cellular networks are expected to decrease their energy consumption and consequently decrease the global carbon emissions. At the same time, cellular operators are required to meet the end-user requirements in terms of throughput. In this paper we propose a novel strategy to pave the way for the cellular operators to integrate with the SG. Our strategy is based on Dynamic Spectrum Assignment (DSA) approach. We formulate the trade-off situation of the operators as a reward function. The objective is to maximize the reward while decreasing the energy consumption. We study homogeneous, spatial-heterogeneous and spatio-temporal heterogeneous types of traffic. We study the performance of the proposed strategy in a dynamic electricity pricing context. We show that by adapting the spectrum utilization properly, the cellular operator can achieve higher rewards while using less energy compared to an operator deploying classical reuse, for low and intermediate traffic loads. We show also that the proposed DSA-based strategy is capable of adapting to the system dynamics; electricity pricing as well as end-users traffic1.