Limiting the climate impact of an increasingly data-hungry world
Further efficiency gains are vital to curb data's huge electricity use
Executive summary
Billions of people watching videos on their smartphone, more and more machines connecting to the internet, blockchain calculations being performed and many companies moving their businesses into the cloud.
The data behind these activities travels over networks, through the air, and via underground and submarine cables that pass through ever-expanding data centres. The technology sector is increasingly considered to be an electricity guzzler of interest. It is often assumed that the amount of data will skyrocket in the coming decade, which will also lead to increased energy consumption.
With energy reduction – in relation to climate impact – becoming a top priority for businesses and governments after the Paris agreement, this aspect is of increasing interest in the technology sector. Electricity use is relevant for tech companies such as cloud providers, software vendors, data centres, internet service providers and mobile network operators. Their data-related electricity use is determined by both data volumes and efficiency.
This report focuses on the energy needed to enable data to flow and will therefore investigate:
- To what extent data flows will increase and what this means for electricity consumption;
- What impact additional electricity consumption has on achieving the Paris climate goals;
- What technology companies can do to limit energy use.
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