Energy consumption of data transfer: Intensity indicators versus absolute estimates

Gaël Guennebaud and Aurélie Bugeau

Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2024, vol. 28, issue 4, 996-1008

Abstract: The assessment of energy consumption of data traffic for Internet services usually relies on energy intensity figures (in Wh/GB). In this paper, we argue against using these indicators for evaluating the evolution of energy consumption of data transmission induced by changes in Internet usage. We describe a model that estimates global impacts for different scenarios of Internet usages and technological hypothesises, and show that it can overcome some limitations of intensity indicators. We experiment the model on four use‐cases: basic usage, video streaming, large downloads, and video conferencing. Results show that increasing the resolution of videos does increase the total energy consumption while misleadingly decreasing the power intensity indicator at the same time. In other words, a more efficient network does not necessarily mean less energy consumption.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13513

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:inecol:v:28:y:2024:i:4:p:996-1008

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1088-1980

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Industrial Ecology is currently edited by Reid Lifset

More articles in Journal of Industrial Ecology from Yale University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().