In this thesis, we formulate a generalized optimization problem to minimize the electricity cost of network operation while using techniques applicable to operational networks. We applied our optimization formulation to two different networks: geo-diverse data centers and cellular networks. In case of cellular networks, using traffic traces from an large operational network, we observed that an operator can save up to 22% in electricity costs by using our proposed scheme. While the percentage amount seems modest, for an operator with 7000 cellular sites in an urban setting, this translates to savings of up to 35.36 MWh annually.