Network Resilience and Sustainability: Renewable Energy-Based Solutions

With the increase in popularity of mobile services, radio access network (RAN) sustainability and resilience to power outages are becoming primary challenges. This article proposes to use power supply solutions based on renewable energy sources (RESs) to jointly increase RANs' resilience and sustainability. We provide an overview of common RAN sustainability practices and present recent data on the increase in communication network failures. We discuss the concept of resilience in RANs, alongside the strategies and challenges of using RESs for power supply. Although RESs integration with RANs has been extensively studied in the literature for sustainability, the operational aspects before, during, and after emergencies remain unexplored. This article addresses this gap by evaluating the impact of RESs on the RAN sustainability and resilience through the use of real data from base station (BS) traffic load, grid power outages, and photovoltaic (PV) power production. Our findings show that integrating small PV panel capacities significantly reduces the carbon footprint of RANs, and it is crucial to maintain network operations during outages, especially during daylight hours when PV production is at its peak.