Page 9 - European Energy Innovation - Winter 2016 publication

Winter 2016 European Energy Innovation 9
Figure 3. Energy efficiency of core-network equipment
Source: [Vereecken et al., IEEE COMMAG, Vol. 49, No. 6, 2011].
ENERGY-EFFICIENCY INCREASE IN
THE CORE – THE CHALLENGE
The fast Internet bit-rate increase
puts an additional challenge on the
respective equipment vendors. On
the one hand, they must seek for new
technologies for further efficiency
increase, even though many areas
have already been optimized. As in
example, with latest power-supply
units, there is little space left for further consists of applying an analogue to
improvements. On the other hand,
they may even be penalized for not
decreasing the energy consumption of
their equipment. The latter meanwhile
happens in an increasing number
of environmental-performance
assessments. Here, the goal often is to
demonstrate year-over-year decrease of
relevant impact factors, namely, energy
consumption and/or GHG production.
Most assessments today use metrics
(for energy consumption or efficiency)
which do not consider the exponential
bit-rate increase with whom today’s
core-network equipment efficiency
cannot keep up. This also disregards
the fact that proper use of the Internet
is one of very few known ways to
decrease global energy consumption
elsewhere, an effect known as Green-
by-ICT that can substantially over-
compensate energy consumption
growth in parts of the Internet. This
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COMMUNICATION
aspect must be considered in particular new technologies appear which may
for core-networks since all Internet
traffic has to pass this part of the
network. The non-consideration of the
strong Internet bit-rate growth with
regard to core-network equipment
energy consumption is common
practice in assessments today.
One possible solution to this problem
using intensity energy-consumption
or GHG-production metrics when
assessing companies with regard
to these impact factors. Here, the
respective numbers are normalized
to, e.g., company growth or number
of goods sold, in order not to penalize Core-network equipment in the
growth. This is done, for example,
in assessments done by the Carbon
Disclose Project (CDP).
The analogue to intensity metrics
can be some sort of Internet-growth
metrics. Here, the approximate average
efficiency increase as per Figure 3,
duplication in energy consumption
per 10-fold bit-rate increase, can be
considered.
Falling behind this trend may then be
penalized, whereas staying ahead can
be rewarded. Such a metric can – and
should – be applied until disruptive
drastically increase energy efficiency.
It is relevant to note that this
proposal does not intend to reduce
the respective vendors’ efforts to
developing better equipment energy
efficiency. The intention is to achieve
somewhat better assessment fairness
for a certain group of equipment.
We will discuss this approach
in relevant sustainability fora,
including CDP and the QuEST Forum
Sustainability Initiative.
CONCLUSION
Internet is getting more energy-efficient
quickly, but this trend today cannot
compensate even faster bit-rate growth.
We therefore propose to apply Internet-
growth metrics in energy-efficiency
or GHG-production assessments. This
approach will be discussed in relevant
sustainability fora. l
Contact details:
Dr. Klaus Grobe
ADVA Optical Networking SE
Fraunhoferstr. 9a
82152 Martinsried, Germany
KGrobe@ADVAoptical.com