Energy Use Implications of ICT Hardware

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Energy Use Implications of ICT Hardware
by Andrius Plepys

• NATO SCIENCE PROGRAMME
• in conjunction with the Carnegie Bosch Institute
•  
• ADVANCED RESEARCH WORKSHOP
• Life Cycle Analysis for Assessing Energy and
  Environmental Implications of Information
  Technology
• Budapest, Hungary
• September 1-3, 2003

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Why the issue?

• Dynamism of ICT sector
• Productivity and structural impacts
• Role in sustainable development
• Climate change policies
• Energy security

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Energy and the New Economy

• Decoupling between GDP growth and energy
  consumption often attributed to ICT sector

4
Electricity crisis a hoax or a reality?
New York, August 15, 2003
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Internet to blame for the blackouts?
El. consumption dynamics in Silicon Valley and
California, 1990-2000
derived from California Energy Commissions
data (2002)

• Interests of power suppliers (coal industry)
• Poor planning and artificial price increase?

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• From Mills to LBNL
• National estimates of AEC

ICT-related electricity consumption as of
national AEC
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However

• Absolute consumption will increase
• Future predictions are fuzzy
• Reportedly large energy saving potential

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Electricity consumption by component in
non-residential sector
Source Roth et al. in ADL (2002)
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The power of power management

• CPU idling gt90 of the time
• Hardware actively used lt25 of the time (Webber,
  2001)
• PM already saves 25, but additional 15 could be
  saved by optimal set up (US EPA, 2002)
• Largest saving potential in offices
• desktop computers/workstations
• CRT monitors
• Copiers printers (Kawamoto et al., 2001)

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The two legs of power management
Technology solutions
Behavioural solutions
- software (BIOS?OS) - products (CRT?LCD) -
components (CPU)
- awareness - knowledge - informed choice
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Relevancy of the issues - DC example

• High power reliability costs dearly
• Overestimated needs
• Consumption insignificant on national scale, but
  a large share of ICT infrastructure
• HVAC largest consumer DCs energy
• Saving 20-40 technically feasible today
• HVAC optimisation (air?water, CHP, to)
• night switching
• Economic barriers (large build-up, risk aversion)

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The impacts of trends

• Wireless communications
• Mobile devices
• LCD displays
• ICT diffusion into other products
• Optic fibre broadband data traffic
• The last mile limitations
• Voice and data n-work convergence
• E-services

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Shortcomings

• Methodological and data issues
• ICT definition and system boundaries
• Allocation procedures
• Data
• Behavioural data (!)
• Power rating
• Stock data and return rates

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Reflections

• Electricity consumption not significant today,
  but future is uncertain
• Growth rate and saving potential makes it
  important for continuous research
• Supply side energy efficiency not always a
  design priority (often a trade-off with costs)
• Demand side marginal role of energy costs to
  encourage savings (hardware costs, performance,
  ergonomics before environmental considerations)

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Reflections

• Technology can take care of some efficiency
  improvements
• Behavioural changes are needed to fully exploit
  the potential savings
• Market failure?

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A role for policy makers?

• Economic instruments (e.g. green taxes)
• Informational voluntary instruments (performance
  standards, labelling initiatives)
• Governmental procurement for more energy
  efficient equipment
• more research on policy role