IEA: Little gadgets consume gigawatts of power
Without more efficient consumer electronics, the world will need to build hundreds of gigawatts worth of new power plants to run the exploding number of electronic gadgets, according to the International Energy Agency.
The Paris-based energy industry watchdog on Wednesday published its "Gadgets and Gigawatts" report, saying that consumer electronics already account for 15 percent of households' electricity bills and is rising rapidly.
Around the world, a growing number of people are acquiring electronics, from mobile phones to televisions, which means the total amount of electricity from electronics is poised to explode in the next two decades.
The IEA estimates that the yearly energy consumed from IT and consumer electronics is on pace to double by 2020 and triple by 2030 to 1,700 terawatt-hours. That would be the equivalent of the combined residential electricity consumption of Japan and the United States in a year.
It's clear that there is technology available to make devices more energy efficient, the IEA said. Because consumers want a long run-time, mobile devices are already more efficient than appliances that run from outlets.
"This example shows us what can be achieved. Where no such commercial drivers exist, governments must step in to ensure that we make the most of every energy efficiency opportunity," IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said in a statement.
He said that governments should "urgently implement" energy-efficiency policies. The biggest opportunity for energy savings improvements from consumer electronics companies is "making hardware and software work together more effectively to ensure that energy is only used when, and to the extent needed," the IEA said.
See CNET's Green Tech Guide which rates PCs and TVs on energy efficiency.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
If stand by power were limited to some small fraction of use power load (say less than 0.1% with a floor at about 0.5 watt), the amount of stand-by power reduction would be massive. Even if one were to say that 1000 gov employees were to be involved with this, we're talking about a significant reduction of power consumption of over 300 million residents of the US. The savings would still be massive, and they would accrue over a large time period.
It's well known that conservation is the largest and most easily deployable green-tech out there. Yet when there is no incentive in the market for the commercial sector to provide the improvement, it's up to an external actor (usually a reglatory entity) to step up and force the hand of the marketplace. This isn't stupid, it's wise. Right now, most buyers don't look at stand-by power when choosing what they buy; they get the cell phone that they want, and just use the charger that comes with it. The manufacturer of the charger doesn't get any benefit from making a more efficient charger, just the opposite. They have to pay higher costs to make a better charger that the consumer doesn't perceive the value of. This is either a "broken marketplace" to one perspective, or an example of "externalities" in the marketplace that bias the cost/benefit equation away from optimal decisions. No matter. However one chooses to view the market equation, when situations like this exist, it is in societies best interest for government action....
Or do we want more coal fired power plants, larger grid loads, and the like because no one really wants to pay for more efficient electronics (other than battery time in poratble devices)?
Matt R
The real question is of usability of devices and whether we want to wait for our devices to meet our needs. We don't need to build more power conscious devices, we need to create better sources of energy which is the real issue. Better sources of energy promote innovation which is really what needs to occur, not thinking of how we can save a few watts of electricity. We live in a world where value is looked upon, spending a fortune on power friendly devices that just expire in 3 years is stupid and power friendly equates to weak.
While I would agree that delays in web page load times can be frustrating, the "wake up" time of my laptop is already long compared to a couple of seconds to fire up a better power supply, assuming of course that it would even take that long.
Being open minded, I'm willing to admit there are a few devices than may require faster start up times that would require higher stand by power, but surely these are a very small minority of the devices out there. But to use the excuse that we're impatient and some devices really would require higher stand by currents as an excuse to ignore the mass (And majority) of products that do not is flawed logic at it's worst. Heck, every power brick used for charging batteries doesn't need to be "instant". Also, this flawed logic assumes that there will be no advances in tech that would reduce the current required warm up times. Requiring lower stand by power consumption levels would likely stimulate this very kind of developments.
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I am so tired of these stories that have no details. Give me some usable numbers!
I think many of these scientists and reporters are attention ******. Do they think we are all too stupid to keep reading these articles if they included a few real numbers (such as the energy consumption of a cell phone charger when it has no phone plugged in).
Try michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html I dont know how good his numbers are, but at least he has some.
While I dislike waste, I'm certainly not an eco-whacko. I refuse to feel guilty about my gadgets and the occasional Tim the Tool Man Err Err Errrr more power suckage. Call me an ugly American, I don't care. We have lots of untapped energy in the U.S. (I love the smell of coal smoke), global warming is a tranzi sham and I pay for the power I use, in whatever form. I don't care what kind of BS Algore or the Obamessiah spew out on a daily basis, it's not honest science, it's set the outcome first and make the model fit it hooey.
1,700 terawatt-hours? I'll bet it is more like 3,000 terawatt-hours and I'll bet we have plenty of excess generation capacity, clean, renewable and otherwise by then to handle it.
http://www.aps.org/energyefficiencyreport/report/aps-energyreport.pdf
Since 1975, CA energy efficiency programs are now saving 35 TWH/year. A bit more than a quarter of this savings is from applience efficiency, about a quarter from building standards, and the rest from utility efficiency programs.
Using 1972 as a baseline, fridge energy consumption is down to 25% of the base line (as of about 2002). 2/3rd of this savings was driven by state standards before any fed action on the issue occurred.
Check pages 69 and 70 of the above listed report for these charts.
To liberty for all, even Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations was willing to admit that there are areas where market forces fail to optimize. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that market constructs that don't properly account for costs, benefits and risks will be definition end up with wrong price points? Doesn't the failure of regulation in the derivitives market show anything to you?
I'm not advocating that one feel guilty for the way things are, but rather, to use numbers and quantitative analysis to look for areas where great benefit can be achieved for very little social costs. This is called intelligent action, and is the hall-mark of enlightened societies.
- by sharpestsharpy May 15, 2009 2:30 AM PDT
- Apple's latest Cinema Display for the MacBook is an interesting development. It has "Integrated Power" which basically means it has a power lead for the MacBook so you don't need to use two power supplies.
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(13 Comments)Apple are selling this a usability thing, you don't waste time getting your power brick out of your bag, but I bet it saves a few watts as well.