Around $80 Billion of Energy Wasted Annually by Networked Gadgets

While we seem to have picked up more and more gadgets along the way, it goes without saying that all of these run on energy and battery power is something that we ought to take a closer look at. In fact, the billions of networked electronic devices that are located globally consume a huge amount of energy, as well as wasting it.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that network-enabled devices in homes and offices worldwide consumed a 616 terawatt-hours last year, where a 65% of that (400 TWh) might have been avoided as wastage by using existing technology, which is enough to equal the energy output by 100 mid-sized coal power plants and all their emissions.

“The proliferation of connected devices brings many benefits to the world, but right now the cost is far higher than it should be,” said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven in a press release. “Consumers are losing money in the form of wasted energy, which is leading to more costly power stations and more distribution infrastructure being built than we would otherwise need—not to mention all the extra greenhouse gases that are being emitted.” Around US $80 billion every year wasted on inefficient tech. By 2020, that number is slated to balloon toward $120 billion and as many as 50 billion individual devices.

Most of the wasted energy is attributed to devices such as game consoles and TVs remaining idle in standby mode. In that mode, they tend to use energy in order to maintain a network connection instead of actually “sleeping” and consuming just the bare minimum.

There are easy and often cheap technical fixes to this issue available today. In general, the design and operation of communication protocols, networks, and software could be modified to improve energy efficiency, while power scaling solutions might also come in handy.

“It need not be this way,” Van der Hoeven said. “If we adopt best available technologies we can minimize the cost of meeting demand as the use and benefits of connected devices grows.”

Source: ubergizmo.com, spectrum.ieee.org