AbstractNonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and energy harvesting technologies are two promising approaches to increase spectral and energy efficiency, respectively. In this paper, a pattern division multiple access (PDMA) uplink transmission network in which users are able to harvest energy from the received radio frequency power is considered. In order to maximize the energy efficiency, we perform resource allocation in the power, subcarrier, and time domains. Also, for each time slot, the pattern matrix is determined dynamically. To enhance the detection reliability, successive interference cancellation and maximal ratio combining at each receiver are utilized. For resource allocation, the actual harvested and available energies of the users are considered. Moreover, in order to perform a comprehensive analysis, further to PDMA, the energy efficiency of the power domain NOMA (PD‐NOMA) is also investigated and the results are compared. It is shown that the energy efficiency and the average total transferred data of PDMA are higher than that of PD‐NOMA.