Sustainability Aspects: Self-sustainable 5G base station

Targeted Vertical: Renewable energy systems

Partner: 

• University OULU: Use Case leader, Telecom Operator, Testbed Provider, Developer & Integrator

The Finnish use case focuses on developing a remote base station site in arctic weather conditions, featuring a remote radio head, RES (wind and photovoltaic with battery assembly and hydrogen fuel cell), and a wireless fronthaul system like microwave link or NTN connectivity.

Motivation and challenges:

The energy systems’ transition towards mostly RES, smart grid technologies and local energy trading (towards 2050’s) will introduce new opportunities but also challenges such as volatile energy profile. Therefore, critical infrastructure components such as ICT system elements need to be constantly available regardless of energy generation status. Furthermore, recent events in Europe have demonstrated that self-sustaining ICT-system components are critical for societal resilience viewpoint. In arctic high latitude regions, the energy mix required is not self-evident. North of arctic circle, there are periods of time in winter when the sun will not appear over the horizon (e.g. in Nuorgam, Northern Finland, this takes more than 50 days). Furthermore, extended periods of low-pressure weather pattern can create such conditions also south of polar circle (in city of Jyväskylä, central Finland, a period of almost 90 days without direct sunlight has been recorded), but typically there is wind available in such conditions. In addition, in arctic regions, there are vast areas where grid connectivity is not an option therefore suggesting self-sustainable solution. To make such energy mix as efficient as possible, ML algorithms can provide accurate energy production estimates while on the consumption side the traffic can be estimated and controlled similarly for energy savings.

Solutions/Trial scenarios to address the challenges

As already mentioned above, the use case focuses on developing a remote base station site in arctic weather conditions, featuring a remote radio head, RES and a wireless fronthaul system like microwave link or NTN connectivity. The architecture of planned activity is depicted in Figure 1. The site aims to minimize energy consumption by centralizing base b and signal processing at UOULU’s baseband hotel, while leveraging edge computing resources in 5GTN for deploying ML algorithms to optimize energy balance based on predictive weather data and traffic estimations. Finnish Meteorological Institute (FIM) provides weather data for accurate energy production prediction, and ML algorithms adjust energy usage and storage, with a hydrogen fuel cell serving as backup power. The ML algorithms, deployed on 5GTN platform, use weather forecasts and telemetry data from remote site’s energy control system to predict energy demand and optimize hydrogen fuel cell operation, accordingly, reducing waste and improving efficiency. This approach enables base stations to meet energy needs efficiently, even in challenging weather conditions, fostering sustainability and reliability in remote arctic locations.

Figure 1: Finnish Use Case Diagram