Towards a Sustainable Green Design for Next-Generation Networks

The evolution in the Information and Communications Technologies industry results in excessive energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission in the wireless networks. In this context, energy efficiency in mobile networks has been attracting considerable attention as green communications and operational expenditures reduction depend on it. Although the Internet of Things is to be supported by devices that are low-energy consuming, the power consumption of the huge number to be connected for several applications and services demand significant attention. To offer insights into green communications, this paper reviews various energy efficiency improvement techniques. Also, we consider a hybrid model in which the main grid power and dynamically harvested green energy from renewable energy sources can be leveraged to support the energy demand of the radio access network. In this regard, we reformulate the energy consumption model and consider an energy-efficient power allocation algorithm for green energy optimization. Numerical results show that with resource allocation algorithm exploitation, the energy efficiency can be enhanced. Besides, the amount of the grid energy consumption can be considerably minimized, resulting in the greenhouse gas emissions reduction in the wireless networks.