Are solar powered cellular base stations a viable solution?

Cellular base stations powered by renewable energy sources such as solar power have emerged as one of the promising solutions to these issues. This article presents an overview of the state-of-the-art in the design and deployment of solar powered cellular base stations.

What are photovoltaic panels & how do they work?

Photovoltaic panels are arrays of solar PV cells to convert the solar energy to electricity, thus providing the power to run the base station and to charge the batteries. Photovoltaic panels are given a direct current (DC) rating based on the power that they can generate when the solar power available on panels is 1 kW/m2.

Why is spectrum sharing a problem in solar powered BS?

Spectrum sharing in solar powered BSs is motivated by the fact that for a given rate requirement and channel noise (e.g. in an AWGN channel), the transmit power may be reduced by increasing the bandwidth, and vice-versa. The problem of energy and spectrum sharing may also be considered jointly.

Why do telecom operators need a diesel base station?

Unfortunately, many of these regions lack reliable grid connectivity and telecom operators are thus forced to use conventional sources such as diesel to power the base stations, leading to higher operating costs and emissions.

How does the range of base stations affect energy consumption?

This in turn changes the traffic load at the BSs and thus their rate of energy consumption. The problem of optimally controlling the range of the base stations in order to minimize the overall energy consumption, under constraints on the minimum received power at the MTs is NP-hard.