DS0709 - Réseaux numériques à hautes performances

Smart pOwer Grid for Energy Efficient small cell Networks – SOGREEN

Submission summary

Europe targets to develop a low-carbon economy through the 2020 roadmap. However, forecast on Information and communications technology (ICT) industry states a continuous increase in global CO2 emissions pushed by the exponential increase in data traffic that characterizes wireless networks. Hence, there is a strong request to reduce the overall footprint and to improve the energy efficiency (EE) of wireless networks. In the past, some progress has been made to increase the efficiency of single network components; however, to reduce the energy consumption of the system as a whole, SOGREEN aims to emphasize the interconnection between power grids and wireless networks.
From one side, although wireless networks are currently designed to deal with peak traffic and ensure coverage requirements, traffic daily profile shows a dynamic pattern during the day, with low load periods early in the morning, medium loads during work-time, and high loads in the late evening. Dynamically adapting network parameters and functionalities to fast and slow changes in the traffic load is today a strong need for designing future sustainable and low carbon wireless technologies.
From the other side, also the electricity cost and production rate both evolve during the day. Prices rise and fall, depending on demand and availability of local supply. Moreover, a major characteristic of the current market of production and consumption of electricity is that all electricity produced in a given moment, and injected into the electrical grid, should necessarily be consumed since electricity storage capacity is currently very limited. Finally, the production of electricity was for decades strongly based on the use of non-renewable fossil fuels; however, in recent years there has been a mass introduction of renewable energy sources, such as solar, as a complement to the traditional energy production. This approach enables to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels on one hand, and on the other hand also to decrease the production of greenhouse gases and its associated damages.
In such a challenging context, SOGREEN proposes a holistic smart energy management system based on intelligent devices interconnected by means of communication networks. Through the tight integration of smart grid and wireless network and following a multidisciplinary approach, we expect to dramatically improve the energy usage. To reach this objective, we will propose a framework based on five strongly integrated research axes. In this regard, we will develop:
1. An innovative architecture where small cells equipped with solar panels and energy storage capabilities are interconnected to a smart energy grid, where ICT provides the “intelligence and communication” vehicle to allow consumer, producer, and distributor to control and manage energy resources in real time.
2. The relevant models and metrics to set research and development targets, enable system adaptation towards more efficient configurations, and assess the performance of the proposed solutions in practical systems.
3. Self-organizing mechanisms based on machine learning tools for adapting the wireless network configuration with respect to the momentary service requirements, local energy availability and cost.
4. Solutions to optimally control the energy purchase, storage, and distribution phases such that cost efficiency of wireless communications is improved and the carbon emissions are reduced.
5. An integrated demonstrator, which embeds a mobile network system level simulator interconnected to a smart grid platform and to a battery test-bed, to clearly show the gains and the limits of the proposed solutions.

Project coordination

vincent heiries (Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives - LETI)

The author of this summary is the project coordinator, who is responsible for the content of this summary. The ANR declines any responsibility as for its contents.

Partner

CEA-LETI Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives - LETI
SUPELEC SUPELEC
G2ELAB Laboratoire de Génie Electrique de Grenoble

Help of the ANR 393,715 euros
Beginning and duration of the scientific project: September 2014 - 36 Months

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