ICT-Enabled Energy Efficiency—A Systems Perspective

John A.

Yes, it takes electrons to move bits of information across the Internet. And also yes, the scale of information technologies is one of exponential growth, reaching more than 100 billion networked devices by 2030. Both of these facts drive understandable and genuine concern about the global footprint of networked devices, about their costs, energy demands, climate change impacts and other environmental effects. But there has been an unfortunate distraction in the analytics, and a limited policy focus that may overstate the worries about these devices. And it may undervalue the potential contribution of information technologies to contribute to long-term economic and climate solutions.

On the one hand, an overly narrow analytic framework that focuses on the sheer growth in the availability of information and communications technology (ICT) overplays the net energy impact of such tools. For example, recent projections by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) suggest that electricity consumption of these technologies may actually decline compared to current levels of use. Perhaps more interesting, compared to projections looking at the year 2030, first made in 2008, the projections released in 2014 now suggest substantially lower energy use in both 2012 and 2030. At the same time, worries about the electricity requirements of individual devices rather than their potential contribution to larger system efficiencies may preclude the development of policies that facilitate cost-effective functional and organizational designs that can, in fact, reduce total energy needs. In effect, ICT-enabled networks may reduce the energy footprint of the larger economy by many times their energy handprint.

In a new working paper we provide an overview that we hope is a first step toward a meaningful appraisal of the ICT handprint as it might more positively shape and significantly reduce the global energy footprint of the economy. Unfortunately, the data are incomplete so it is difficult to know what the larger benefits might look like. Furthermore, the optimal intelligent efficiency designs are still emergent. It is difficult to know with any certainty how an ideal ICT-enabled system or network might really function. Therefore, early prescriptive standards which focus prematurely on minimizing energy use may exclude the development of more robust systems that lower costs, improve performance, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

All of these ideas and insights would benefit from a more substantial review and a more rigorous assessment of how the current energy (and economic) paradigm might be reshaped through a more positive energy systems perspective. A useful step to encourage an innovation-based systems assessment would be to convene a series of national workshops and/or a progression of international conferences that are specifically designed to explore the fundamental aspects of at least five different policy opportunities. These are to:

  • Establish common definitions and metrics;
  • Build international cooperation about the larger public purpose of energy productivity, and about smart standards and test procedures;
  • Proliferate credible and common (or generally accepted) protocols for measuring specific intelligent efficiency applications;
  • Research ways to actively advance energy harvesting techniques and technologies; and,
  • Raise much greater awareness about the intelligent efficiency handprint.

Notwithstanding the further insights that might emerge from a progression of workshops and conferences, or a further and more rigorous assessment of the full benefits of intelligent efficiency as it stimulates a more robust economy, the evidence underscores one very critical idea—the U.S. and global economies will be better off by “thinking big” about energy productivity gains powered by information and communications technology. More to the point, if policymakers miss the big gains that are likely to follow systems thinking, focusing instead on minimizing the energy demands of individual devices, we run the risk of a continued weakening of the greater economy. On the other hand, the combination of market incentives and policy signals that open up the immense opportunities for intelligent efficiency can increase the productivity of the economy in ways that enable our prosperity to improve and continue.

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