Recovery of waste heat from base stations in the mobile network
Waste heat recovery from rooftop BTSs is a new concept whose existing literature and real applications are still rare. The original heat exchangers implemented in the cabinet for storing baseband units (BBUs) were designed for cooling the electronic devices as the sole objective. In order to recover the waste heat and use it for domestic heating, there is a need to redesign the heat exchanger or to implement a heat pump unit to lift the temperature of the waste heat up to a level required by heat supply systems in adjacent buildings. Techno-economic analyses of the integrated heating systems are also needed to deliver cost-effective renovations for the waste heat recovery.
Background
Given the increasing deployment and thereby higher energy use of 5G mobile networks in Sweden, there is significant economic and ecological values in terms of recovering waste heat generated by data processing rooftop telecommunication equipment scattered in urban areas, which are important energy users and heat dissipators which have not yet been investigated thoroughly with its heat recovery potentials. The heat recovery solution will support the transition to more sustainable urban infrastructures and building sectors in Sweden.
Waste heat recovery from rooftop BTSs is a new concept whose existing literature and real applications are still rare. The original heat exchangers implemented in the cabinet for storing baseband units (BBUs) were designed for cooling the electronic devices as the sole objective. In order to recover the waste heat and use it for domestic heating, there is a need to redesign the heat exchanger or to implement a heat pump unit to lift the temperature of the waste heat up to a level required by heat supply systems in adjacent buildings. Techno-economic analyses of the integrated heating systems are also needed to deliver cost-effective renovations for the waste heat recovery. Led by Associate Professor Hatef Madani, a Swedish Energy Agency (Energimyndigheten) funded research project has been carried out at the Division of Applied Thermodynamics to develop cost-effective heat recovery solutions integrated between telecommunication base stations and hydronic heating systems in buildings.
Aim and Work Packages
We will answer the following two key research questions by the end of the project, considering state-of-the-art engineering practice in the areas of both building heating solutions and thermal design of BTS equipment.
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What are the thermal design methods to optimize both heat recovery and cooling of the electronic cabinets in rooftop BTSs, which were originally optimized for cooling purpose only?
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What are the simple and affordable retrofit methods for BTS’s waste heat source to be integrated with existing building heating systems?
There are five work packages defined in this project for answering the two questions above:
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WP1: Systematic overview of heat dissipation by 5G base stations
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WP2: Heat recovery heat pump design through modelling of the integrated heating systems
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WP3: CFD modelling and optimization of BTS electronic cabinet’s thermal design
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WP4: Investigating retrofit methods from techno-economic perspective
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WP5: Real life demonstration in KTH Live-in-Lab
Publications
Coming soon
Contact person
Project leader:
Researcher
