Power efficient transmission has received significant attention among cellular network operators to reduce the environmental effects and to maintain profitability. Since the evolved node base station (eNB) is the primary power consumer in the cellular network, endeavours have been made to study eNB power consumption and to find approaches to enhance power efficiency. The concept of multi-hop relay (MHR) network is introduced in 4G and beyond standards to reduce the deployment cost and transmission power while improving the coverage and capacity. Here relay stations (RS) are also deployed by the network operators along with eNBs to maximize the average spectral efficiency per user. But the deployment of RSs is not standardized. Improper RS deployment leads to severe quality loss. In this work, RS deployment based on cost (RDBC) approach is utilized which identifies the RS deployment combinations and deploys different types of RSs to maximize the system quality. Through simulations, it is validated that the proposed approach maximizes the transmission quality, coverage and effectiveness in power consumption and minimizes the deployment cost and interference when compared to many of the conventional RS deployment approaches. The scheme utilized ensures power efficient transmission and acts as a potential candidate for green radio communication. © 2016 River Publishers.