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Nowadays, the staggering increase of the mobile traffic is leading to the deployment of denser and denser cellular access networks, hence Mobile Operators are facing huge operational cost due to power supply. Therefore, several research efforts are devoted to make mobile networks more energy efficient, with the twofold objective of reducing costs and improving sustainability. To this aim, Resource on Demand (RoD) strategies are often implemented in Mobile Networks to reduce the energy consumption, by dynamically adapting the available radio resources to the varying user demand. In addition, renewable energy sources are widely adopted to power base stations (BSs), making the mobile network more independent from the electric grid. At the same time, the Smart Grid (SG) paradigm is deeply changing the energy market, envisioning an active interaction between the grid and its customers. Demand Response (DR) policies are extensively deployed by the utility operator, with the purpose of coping with the mismatches between electricity demand and supply. The SG operator may enforce its users to shift their demand from high peak to low peak periods, by providing monetary incentives, in order to leverage the energy demand profiles. In this scenario, Mobile Operators can play a central role, since they can significantly contribute to DR objectives by dynamically modulating their demand in accordance with the SG requests, thus obtaining important electricity cost reductions.

The contribution of this thesis consists in investigating various critical issues raised by the introduction of photovoltaic (PV) panels to power the BSs and to enhance the …