Techno-Economic and Environmental Analysis for Off-Grid Mobile Base Stations Electrification with Hybrid Power System in Tanzania

Abstract: Base stations (BSs) are essential in cellular networks. Lack of access to reliable electricity in mobile communication systems is a major economic and environmental concern for service delivery in Tanzania. Mobile network operators (MNOs) use diesel generators (DG) to power their BSs which are costly and high greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. In this paper, we investigate challenges hindering the use of renewable energy (RE) by MNOs. We provide a techno-economic analysis for using a hybrid power system (HPS) comprising of DG and RE. In techno-economic analysis, we considered solar, wind, battery, and DG in different configurations. The systems were simulated in HOMER to get the optimized model suitable for the BS sites. Results show that the solar/DG/Battery and the solar/wind/DG/Battery provide optimal solution susceptible to satisfy the needs. Although HPS suffers from the high initial cost, the results are satisfactory. The analysis indicates a reduction of net present cost (NPC) by 54%, cost of energy (COE) by more than 50%, and the GHG emissions for about 88%.

Keywords: Off-grid base station, Net present cost, Greenhouse gases emissions, Mobile communication systems, Hybrid Power System, and Renewable energy