Battery management for demand-response in mobile networks powered by a smart grid

We focus in this paper on energy management strategies for mobile networks equipped with battery storage capacity and powered by a smart grid. We consider the case where the network operator signs an incentive based demand response contract with the energy provider, in which case the former should stop using the grid if the latter tells it to do so, typically in periods of high energy consumption. The operator gets in this case a premium, e.g. in the form of a discount on its energy bill. However, if the operator fails to comply with the energy reduction requests, it would pay a penalty. We formulate the problem using Markov Decision Process (MDP) and apply dynamic programming algorithm to devise an optimal offline policy which minimizes the network operator energy expenditure, by indicating to it when to buy energy and when to operate its network on the smart grid or on its own energy storage. We also show how the operator should manage its battery in order to respond to the energy provider requests to stop consuming from the grid at high electricity load.