ICT and Energy Consumption Study Notes

ICT-ENSURE Project: Role of ICT in Energy Consumption and Efficiency

Project Overview

• Project Number: 224017

• Project Name: ICT-ENSURE (European ICT Environmental Sustainability Research)

• Call Identifier: FP7-ICT-2007-2

• Funding Scheme: Coordination and support action

• Focus: The Role of ICT in Energy Consumption and Energy Efficiency

• Authors: Lorenz M. Hilty, Vlad Coroama, Margarita Ossés de Eicker, Thomas F. Ruddy, Esther Müller

• Affiliation: Technology and Society Lab, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, St.Gallen, Switzerland

Executive Summary

• ICT's Role in Greenhouse Gas Emissions:

  • ICT sector contributes approximately 2% of worldwide man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

  • It is the fastest-growing emissions sector, raising concerns about its environmental impact.

• ICT's Potential for Energy Efficiency:

  • ICT can significantly reduce environmental impacts in other sectors by increasing their energy efficiency.

  • ICT optimizes existing processes and enables new, more energy-efficient processes across all economic sectors.

  • The energy saved through ICT-induced efficiency is estimated to be several times larger than ICT's overall energy consumption.

• European Commission's Goals:

  • The European Commission aims to achieve a 20% greenhouse gas reduction by 2020 by deploying ICT for energy efficiency.

• Study Focus:

  • The study examines ICT's energy consumption and its potential to induce energy efficiency across the economy, considering both current and future scenarios.

  • Research questions:

    • a) Estimates of the current energy consumption of ICT.

    • b) Prospective future developments in this energy consumption.

    • c) Future energy efficiency potentials induced by ICT in various economic sectors.

  • The study does not cover ICT-related energy efficiency potentials already realized.

Methodologies

• Literature Review:

  • Recent quantitative studies (since 2005) on ICT energy consumption, ICT for energy efficiency, Green I(C)T, ICT and climate change, or ICT and sustainability.

  • Documents describing projects, programs, or initiatives to reduce ICT-related energy consumption or increase energy efficiency.

  • Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies on ICT products and services.

  • Studies on smart power networks (smart grids).

• Expert Interviews:

  • Questionnaires to collect ideas beyond current quantitative knowledge and to identify research questions related to future developments.

  • Experts were asked about future ICT energy consumption under business-as-usual and energy-optimistic scenarios.

  • Experts estimated the relative importance of various application areas for ICT-induced energy efficiency and identified relevant ICT categories.

Study Results

• Key Findings:

  • Thorough overview of state-of-the-art literature, emphasizing LCA methodology and including a formal definition of ICT-related energy efficiency and a conceptual framework of ICT's effects on energy efficiency.

  • Overview of existing research programmes, project clusters, and institutions involved in the EU and beyond.

  • Results of expert interviews regarding future ICT energy consumption and applications for energy efficiency.

• Detailed analysis revealed:

  • Application fields like TVs and set-top boxes are expected to increase energy consumption without significantly contributing to energy efficiency.

  • Embedded ICT is expected to play a crucial role in energy efficiency across the economy, even with increased energy consumption.

Basic Definitions and Scope of the Study

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

• Defining ICT is difficult due to its rapid development.

• The EU's Seventh Framework Programme allocates significant funding to ICT but lacks a formal definition.

• Existing definitions come from organizations measuring the ICT sector's size.

ISIC

• The United Nation's "International Standard of Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities" (ISIC) includes a top-level category for "Information and communication" (cat. J).

• ICT is defined broadly, including content industries, which is debatable.

• Products like digital cameras and music players are not explicitly listed in the ISIC classification.

OECD

• The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has been working towards a definition of the ICT sector since 1997.

• The OECD definition comprises three main pillars: ICT manufacturing, trade, and service industries.

• Conceptual Level (OECD):

  • ICT goods must process and communicate information electronically or use electronic processing to detect, measure, and/or record physical phenomena or control a physical process.

  • ICT services must enable the function of information processing and communication by electronic means.

• The OECD classification combines components of ISIC's "Information and communication" section with subcategories from other ISIC sections (e.g., manufacturing).

• A further taxonomy, the World Customs Organization's "Harmonized System" (HS), is used for ICT goods, offering detailed categorization for international data comparison.

• The OECD excludes content industries from the ICT sector, considering them part of a broader "information economy."

Reasons for Definitional Difficulties – Rapid ICT Development

• Moore's Law implies exponential growth of storage, computing capacity, and bandwidth, causing rapid changes.

• Digitalization: Formerly non-computerized entities become increasingly ICT-based. The continuous shift towards digitalization of life hampers a precise definition of the ICT sector for three main reasons:

  • Enumerations quickly become outdated due to new digital technologies.

  • Goods and services are increasingly enhanced with ICT technology (Ubiquitous Computing/Pervasive Computing).

  • Several services that nowadays undoubtedly belong to ICT have always been related to “information”.

Types of ICT Considered in this Study

• Servers

• End-user devices

• Network infrastructure for communication between end-user devices and servers.

• Entertainment technologies like TV sets and set-top boxes are included.

• Embedded ICT components are included.

• Content industries are excluded, consistent with established conventions.

Energy Consumption

General Definition and Considerations

• Energy consumption is the transformation of energy from a usable to an unusable form.

• Final energy consumption is the energy transformed at the point of use.

• Most studies on ICT energy consumption focus on final electricity.

• Fewer studies include fossil fuels directly consumed by the ICT industry.

• Most studies consider only the use phase of ICT products.

ICT-Related Energy Consumption

• Definition: The amount of energy consumed by a given ICT system in a given period of time.

• Parameters to Consider:

  • Time period (usually one year).

  • Spectrum between final energy consumption and cumulative energy demand.

  • Definition of the ICT system (type of ICT, geographic boundaries, ownership, or service provided).

Energy Efficiency

General Definition and Considerations

• Energy efficiency of a system A is the ratio of the useful output of services from A to the energy consumption by A: $μ = raz{S}{P}$ (S=Service output; P=Energy Consumption)

• Energy efficiency differs from energy conversion efficiency: $η = raz{P<em>{out}}{P</em>{in}}$

• Relative energy efficiency: $\rho<em>{A,B} = \frac{μ</em>A}{μ<em>B} = \frac{S</em>A}{P<em>A} / \frac{S</em>B}{P<em>B} = \frac{S</em>A P<em>B}{P</em>A S_B}$

• If services A and B are functionally equivalent: $\rho<em>{A,B} = \frac{P</em>B}{P<em>A}$ (with $S</em>A = S_B$)

ICT-Related Energy Efficiency

• Given two systems A and B producing a functionally equivalent output of services SA = SB, when A contains a subsystem C which is an ICT system and B does not contain that subsystem, all other things being equal:

  • ICT‐related energy efficiency of A with regard to C is the relative energy efficiency of A with regard to B (with B = A ∖ C), $\rho<em>{A,B} = \frac{P</em>B}{P<em>A}$(with $S</em>A = S_B$)

Scope and Methodology of the Study

Selection of Literature

*   Recent quantitative studies (since 2005) focusing on ICT energy consumption, ICT for energy efficiency, Green I(C)T, ICT and climate change, or ICT and sustainability in general.
*   Documents describing projects, programs, or initiatives aimed at reducing ICT-related energy consumption or increasing ICT-related energy efficiency.
*   Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies on ICT products and services.
*   Studies on the potential of smart power networks (smart grids).

Expert Interviews

• Literature review was used to create a questionnaire for expert interviews.

• The aim was to collect ideas beyond current quantitative knowledge and identify research questions, not to do a representative survey.

Relevance of ICT-Related Energy Consumption and Energy Efficiency

Importance of Sustainability Research in this Field

• ICTs have shown astounding progress in technical efficiency, decreasing time, space, material, and energy needed for a unit of ICT service.

• The challenge is translating this progress into sustainable development.

• An information society can solve the dilemma of providing quality of life without overusing the ecosystem.

• A 'dematerialization' of the economic system by a factor of 4-10 is a precondition for sustainability.

• ICTs play a key role in enabling this economic dematerialization.

• ICTs can also reduce energy intensity and increase energy efficiency of the economy as stated by European Commission and the Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC).

Outstanding Opportunities and Risks

• Moore's Law: Transistors per microchip doubles every 18-24 months, leading to exponential growth in processor performance per energy input.

• The increasing energy efficiency of ICT hardware does not directly translate into improvement in overall energy consumption as total energy demand is outgrowing efficiency gains and ICT enabled energy efficiency in other sectors.

• Sustainability research must look beyond individual device efficiency to understand complex dynamics.

• A simulation study in EU-15 showed that ICT's impact on environmental indicators depends on framework conditions, like energy prices and rebound effects.

• Policy needs to reinforce positive effects and counteract ICT-related risks.

• A model-based approach is needed to promote positive effects and alleviate negative effects proactively.

Relative Importance of ICT Regarding Energy Consumption

• ICT-related final energy consumption seems less relevant compared to industry, residential, or transport sectors.

• In 2005, 4.5% of the electrical power in EU-27 was consumed by consumer electronics, and 3.5% by ICT in a narrower sense.

• Estimations for 2020 project that the energy consumption will rise to at least 400 TWh, mainly driven by the diffusion of larger-screen TVs, higher-speed broadband access or higher capacity data centres, one could conclude that ICT‐related energy consumption is less relevant than the energy demand of other types of technologies, such as industrial machines, non‐ICT household appliances (heaters, ovens, fridges), and vehicles.
  *ICT-related energy demand in the transport sector is not measured.

• Key Considerations:

  • Final energy demand differs from primary energy demand; electricity-consuming devices can over-proportionally increase primary energy demand and CO2 emissions.

  • The final energy demand of ICT alone is growing faster than overall final energy demand.

  • Most innovative technologies needed in other sectors to increase their energy efficiency are partly based on ICT.

Scientific Interest in this Field

Emergence of