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A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVEON GREEN ICT Network
infrastructures to curb carbon emissions
ITU Green Standards Week
Rome, Italy Session
8 September 8th 2011 Dr.
Charles Despins
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Green ICT in Canada

• Prompt
• Industry-university RD consortium headquartered
  in Montreal, Canada
• Mixed public private sector funding
• 30 industry members and 12 university members
• Focus on various industry vertical markets (Green
  ICT since 2008).

• ICT in Canada
• Represents 1 megaton of GHG emissions (lt1)
• Application in various sectors could curb GHG
  emissions by 20 megatons per year
• - 3.2 M cars off the road- 7 of Canadas annual
  Kyoto obligations.
• Estimated annual benefits 7.5B-12.9B.

Sources Climate Check, WWF Canada
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From energy efficiency to GHG emission reductions

• Many Green ICT RD initiatives focus on energy
  efficiency
• Cost driver e.g. for the data-intensive wireless
  industry
• A theme on which ICT researchers traditionally
  excel.
• However, the link between energy efficiency and
  GHG emission reductions can be but is not always
  direct
• ICTs operate 24/7 and produce scope 2 GHG
  emissions
• If power grid is based entirely on fossil fuels,
  the link between energy consumption and GHG
  emissions is direct BUT
• Power grids are often a mix of fossil-fuel
  (cheap) and clean energy (more expensive) sources
  utilities will leverage energy efficiency gains
  to limit the use of clean energy sources.
• In such cases, energy efficiency gains thus
  translate into zero gains in terms of GHG
  emission reduction

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Green ICTmaximizing economic environmental
benefits

• 1. Integrate ICT design with power generation
  considerations
• Requires holistic approach involving different
  ICT subsectors, power generation and sustainable
  development experts
• 2. Develop GHG emission standards for ICT
• ISO14064 protocol is difficult to apply in the
  ICT sector
• The ITU is a leader in developing such standards
  to quantify the GHG emission reduction
  potential of ICTs.
• 3. Tap research funds targeted to GHG emission
  reductions
• In many jurisdictions, these funds are managed by
  environment departments who may not always
  sufficiently aware of the G-ICT opportunity
• The ICT research community has yet to
  significantly tap these sources of funds

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The carbon market cap trade perspectives

• GHG emission limits are gradually being imposed
  throughout the world in various industry sectors
• The ICT sector is not one of these so far
• Taxes on fossil fuels are often directed to GHG
  emission reduction funds
• Cap trade regimes are being proposed e.g.
  North America
• Purchasing trading of carbon credits if
  emission caps are exceeded
• ICT GHG standards will allow the ICT industry to
  participate in this carbon economy
• Examples of cap trade proposals and GHG
  registries
• Western Climate Initiative (www.westernclimateinit
  iative.org) 7 USA states 4 Canada provinces
• Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
  (www.rggi.org)10 USA (northeast) states

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Greenstar (GSN) a zero-carbon telecom network
pilot project
http//www.greenstarnetwork.com
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Greenstar (GSN) a zero-carbon network pilot

• GSN objectives and underlying principles
• GSN an open architecture ICT service delivery
  network
• Leverage virtualization concepts so that user
  applications can be moved, in a seamless way for
  the user, to data centers in close proximity to
  renewable energy sources.
• Renewable energy use is also optimized within
  GSN energy loss in transmitting power is higher
  than when data is moved over networks.
• Development of ICT GHG emission standards (ITU
  link).
• Utilize GSN to generate carbon credits in a
  perspective of selling such credits generated by
  relocation of service implementation within GSN.

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Greenstar partners
Partners (Canada)
Partners (international)
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Going forward

• Extend virtualization concept to backbone and
  access portions of networks e.g.
• Router and switching virtualization
• Wireless access virtualization
• Only 15 of energy consumed by a base station is
  radiated
• Virtualize signal processing functions with
  radio-over-fiber architectures
• Build upon initial work in GENI (USA) and 4WARD
  (FP7-EU).
• ICT is a (relatively unexploited) low-hanging
  fruit in terms of GHG emission reductions
• Fossil fuel sources wont vanish in the
  foreseeable future
• Climate change dilemmareconciling economic and
  environmental benefits often perceived as
  difficult to achieve.
• ICT opportunities intelligent transport systems,
  domotics, industry processes, etc.

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• Any jurisdiction exploiting renewable sources
  of energy can be a hub for the 21st century,
  digital, low-carbon economy.
• Virtualizing ICT infrastructure and co-locating
  data centers with renewable energy sources
• Green benefit energy efficiency (resulting from
  transmission of data instead of energy) and GHG
  emission reductions.
• Digital benefit economic incentive for
  (regional) network deployments.
• Productivity benefit economic incentive for
  investment in ICT products
  and services.

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For more on these G-ICT concepts
C. Despins et al., Leveraging Green
Communications for Carbon Emission Reductions
Techniques, Testbeds and Emerging Carbon
Footptint Standards, IEEE Communications
Magazine, vol. 49, no. 8, August 2011, pp.
101-109.
For more information on Prompt
For more information on Prompt
www.promptinc.org
Mr. Jacques Mc Neill Green ICT Coordinator 1-514.
875.0032 ext. 105 JMcNeill_at_promptinc.org
Dr. Charles Despins President
CEO 1-514.875.0032 ext. 101 CDespins_at_promptinc.or
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