A Survey of Green Base Stations in Cellular Networks

The growing awareness towards energy efficient cellular networks has paved way for new technologies in designing green cellular networks. According to technical analysts, the base stations are the most energy intensive part of a typical cellular network. Saving power in base stations is therefore the primary focus in green cellular networks. The main goal of designing green base stations is for saving energy and reducing power consumption while guaranteeing service and coverage for users and ensuring the capability of base station for evolution. This can be achieved by minimizing the base station energy consumption with energy efficient hardware design, power saving protocols for sleep modes, energy aware cooperative base station power management with self organizing cells, cell zooming, or by using renewable energy sources. This attempts to review possible energy efficient solutions towards green base station.