Assesment of Carbon Credits for Power Generation Systems at GSM Base Station Site

Abstract

Electricity production is often a source of CO₂ emissions, for instance when fossil fuel is combusted in power plants. Therefore the root cause of pollution coming from telecommunication industry is the source of energy (diesel genset) the network operators used in running their Base station sites. Energy consumption of using diesel to power base station by telecom networks is a contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper presents the comparative carbon credits of hybrid (PV/wind/hydro/Diesel) power systems for base station site. The assessment is based on theoretical model of the power stations using Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER) software. The proposed Hybrid (Solar, Wind & Hydro) + DG system was simulated using the model which results in eight different topologies: Hybrid (Solar, Wind & Hydro) + DG, Hybrid (Solar & Hydro) + DG, Hybrid (Wind & Hydro) + DG, Hydro only + DG, Hybrid (Solar & Wind) + DG, Solar only + DG, Wind only + DG, DG. From the simulation results, it is shown that the designed Hybrid PV/wind/hydro/Diesel system has the highest carbon credits of $14509.16 relative to the case of a diesel-only system of zero. Details of the comparisons are presented.