As we transition into a more advanced technological dependent society, the global digital energy footprint consumes an increasingly larger quantity of energy. During this transition, we also need to understand how these advances increase our energy consumption, to ensure this can be minimized.
The components that require power to keep your smartphone working include data centers & locations, cell towers, fiber or cable networks, Wi-Fi requirements, and smartphone charging. Even the content of your smartphone interaction contributes (the energy used to bring your favorite app or that show you’re streaming on Netflix). For most of us we have no control on the energy consumption, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be aware.
Cell towers are now commonplace throughout the landscape with providers scrambling to boast how extensive the coverage is. Each cell tower requires high energy consuming infrastructure to make sure it functions. However cell communication networks are developing new technologies to reduce this energy consumption. The radio transceivers used in a Base Transceiver Station (BTS) are now being designed to operate in high ambient temperatures. By removing the need to cool via air conditioning, the energy consumption of the BTS drops significantly (up to half). Smaller towers that use less energy can have their locations optimized in large cities to reduce the energy footprint of the combined network.
The speed of fiber optic networks has increased our reliability on Wi-Fi for our smartphones. Free Wi-Fi and hotspots are now commonplace all over our cities. The need to access information instantly continues to expand the network that we rely on. Our phones are connected to the network at all times in order to receive notifications. The increasing energy requirements of the growing network must lean towards renewable to lessen the impact to the environment.
When charging a smartphone, there are minimal gains in using your laptop instead of the wall charger. If the laptop is idle and only being used to charge your phone then it will consume more power, however if your laptop is in use the gains will be governed by the efficiency of the system when the load (smartphone) is added. For multiple products, the efficiency gain is increased by charging through a laptop rather than multiple wall sockets. While individual gains are small, this type of thinking on a global scale will have larger benefits in the reduction of energy consumption.
Determining the life of our digital products, we can assess how significant the manufacturing energy is to the overall life cycle energy consumption. Consider how quickly newer model phones are released before consumers will replace them. The high energy consumption required to produce the microchips becomes a much larger factor of the energy footprint as the device becomes obsolete more quickly. The components are made from exotic materials that consume significant energy to mine and refine. Re-purposing will reduce the high life cycle energy footprint, but as support for older products is becoming shorter, consumers are being forced to upgrade by the technology providers. This increases the importance of recycling hardware to ensure we can keep the energy footprint to a minimum.
Energy consumption for Smart Phones and their Networks cannot be avoided but reducing dependency through innovation and transitioning the supply to a renewable source will be of most benefit to our future. Small considerations on a personal basis can make a big difference when combined within the community.
