How much does it cost to maintain a communication base station with wind and solar power in a year

Base stations that are powered by energy harvested from solar radiation not only reduce the carbon footprint of cellular networks, they can also be implemented with lower capital cost as compared to those using grid or conventional sources of energy . There is a second factor driving the interest in solar powered base stations.

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.

A simple method for estimating the costs of building and operating a cellular mobile network is proposed. Using the empirical data from a third generation mobile system (WCDMA), it is shown that the cost is driven by different factors depending on the characteristics of the base stations deployed.

BSs are categorized according to their power consumption in descending order as: macro, micro, mini and femto. Among these, macro base stations are the primary ones in terms of deployment and have power consumption ranging from 0.5 to 2 kW. BSs consume around 60% of the overall power consumption in cellular networks.

The average cellular base station, which comprises the tower and the radio equipment attached to it, can use anywhere from about one to five kilowatts (kW), depending on whether the radio equipment is housed in an air-conditioned building, how old the tower is and how many transceivers are in the 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.