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Title:	Optimum renewable energy systems options for green telecommunication towers
Authors:	Ahmed Mohamed Omar Abdulmula (P80399)
Supervisor:	Kamaruzzaman Sopian, Prof. Dato' Dr.
Keywords:	Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia -- Dissertations Dissertations, Academic -- Malaysia Telecommunication towers Renewable energy
Issue Date:	19-Jun-2021
Description:	Cellular Network Operators are increasingly looking for clean, cost-effective, reliable electrical power alternatives to operate their telecommunication towers at off-grid sites instead of using diesel generators with high operational expenditures and environmentally harmful. Consequently, moving to the new concept of green telecommunication towers is recently introduced, which depends primarily on improving energy-saving and using renewable energy sources to supply power. This research focuses on deploying the green off-grid telecommunication towers concept since telecommunication towers are the primary responsibility for spreading network coverage. Hence, the study's main objective is to design a renewable power system for an off-grid telecommunication tower and improve energy-saving by accurately estimating the energy load profile of the telecommunication tower. Power consumption modelling to accurately calculate the energy load profile under real-time data traffic load is considered an effective method for improving the energy-saving of telecommunication towers and balancing power supply and energy demand. Using the power consumption model technique, the energy-saving efficiency at the telecommunication tower enhanced by 24.19 %, and the size of the generation power system decreased by 33.33 %. A renewable power system design is based on technoeconomic comparative analysis of several renewable energy source techniques by HOMER Pro' simulation to determine an optimal cost-effective renewable power system to satisfy the telecommunication tower's load requirements. Thirty different combinations of the hybrid power system of five energy resources, including solar power, wind energy, pico-hydropower, hydrogen fuel cells, and diesel generator as a conventional source, were considered to be compared. The total net present cost (NPC), Levelized cost of energy (LCOE), energy production, and the battery bank analysis are used as indices for measuring the optimisation level of each energy solution. The option with the highest optimisation value was the best energy solution for that telecommunication tower site. The final results indicated that hybrid systems consisted of a fixed high-efficiency solar photovoltaic array with battery followed by the hybrid system consisting of 2 kW pico-hydropower with one battery unit exhibited the lowest NPC and COE of $ 33,974.0, $ 0.264/kWh, $ 34,590.0, and $ 0.265/kWh, respectively. These values were lower than those of using diesel generators with batteries by 17%%, 16.4%, 16%, and 15.3%, respectively. The results also demonstrated that although the dual-axis photovoltaic tracking system with maximum light detection controller exerts a positive effect on increasing the yield energy production and minimising the size of the overall power system. But due to the high initial cost of the technology and the increased maintenance costs of moving parts, the NPC and COE increased to 12.84% and 12.58%, respectively, compared with the fixed photovoltaic array. Hence, this technology is not economically feasible, especially for powering off-grid telecommunication towers.,Ph.D.
Pages:	193
Publisher:	UKM, Bangi
Appears in Collections:	Solar Energy Research Institute / Institut Penyelidikan Tenaga Suria (SERI)

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