Improving the interaction of a green mobile network with the smart grid

Abstract

In the last years, Green Mobile Networks that are powered with renewable energy sources have been designed and deployed with the twofold objective of reducing operational costs and providing service in scenarios in which the power grid is not reliable. At the same time, the introduction of Smart Grids is deeply changing the energy market, by effect of the grid actively interacting with its customers. In this paper, we consider a scenario in which a green mobile network is integrated in a smart grid. The mobile network interacts with the smart grid, responding to its requests by adapting its load. Load adaptation is obtained by resource on demand strategies that operate on Base Stations, and by taking decisions about the use of the renewable energy that is locally produced and that can be used for powering the green mobile network, it can be stored or even returned to the grid. The results, derived through a Markovian model, show that the use of resource on demand strategies in the green mobile network improves the interaction between the network and the smart grid: significant cost gain can be achieved, the responsiveness to the smart grid requests increases, low storage probability decreases.