A Wireless and Power Grid Converged Network Simulator with Hybrid Energy Sources

For economic benefits, cellular operators are increasingly incorporating renewable energy sources alongside conventional electricity, forming hybrid power supply within micro-grid. In order to evaluate the instability issues of renewable energy sources and the potential impacts to future wireless networks, we present a converged network simulator for wireless and power grid systems. Specifically, we integrate GridLAB-D and NS-3 to coordinate complex interactions among wireless and power grid elements, and propose dual time scale converged framework with efficient communication protocols to enable the co-simulation environments. Numerical experiments are given to show the design insights into real-time dynamics such as throughput and renewable energy utilization, which helps to reduce energy consumption and operational expenditures for future wireless networks.