Singapore, 30 June - While energy generation and the aviation industry are looked upon by many as big culprits of greenhouse gas emissions, some two to three per cent of global emissions come from the information and communications technologies (ICT) sector.

United Nations statistics peg ICT’s contribution as nearly equal to that of the global aviation industry and predicts it is set to rapidly grow in the years ahead. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) director Malcolm Johnson, one Google data centre located in the United States consumes as much energy as the entire city of Geneva, Switzerland - a footprint not to be under-estimated.

But ICT advocates say that technology plays a key role in enabling other industries to lower their emissions footprints. Rather than industries consuming more resources, many of the same outcomes can take place electronically - think of emailing versus sending something by airmail, or reading your news online rather than on paper.

Taking this enabling factor into account, the Smart2020 Report by research firm The Client Group identified specific opportunities that can result in emissions reductions. The report estimates the potential for reduction is five times the size of the ICT sector’s own footprint.

Its experts estimate that these ICT-enabled efficiencies can lead to a reduction of 7.8 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent, or about 15 per cent of the world’s business as usual footprint by 2020.

Through operational and design changes, as well as new technology and use of renewable energy, a new era of green ICT is dawning.

Greening ICT

For these potentially massive cuts in greenhouse gasses to happen, current ICT systems, as well as new ones coming online, need to be run in an energy efficient manner. On average, industry statistics rank energy consumption as greater than 50 percent of the cost of running a data centre. From both an environmental and economic perspective, there are huge gains to be made.

Businesses and governments alike are taking action. Recognising the global trend, Ling Keok Tong, Deputy Director of Technology and Planning Group at iDA Singapore highlights the potential for green ICT. “Green ICT is important to make data centres more efficient and the industry more competitive. It also can contribute to helping Singapore meet its sustainability targets,” he says.

To this end, the iDA is working in house as well as with other sectors to improve ICT performance. As one example, in the area of smart grid development, iDA is working with the Energy Market Authority on smart grid strategy. Smart grids involve intelligent systems which enable the efficient management and monitoring of energy consumption.

iDA is also developing a green data centre so operators can see an optimized data centre configuration running on its own in an isolated environment. This means that operators can understand first hand, with zero risk to their own data centre, how the optimised configurations work. The knowledge can then be implemented back in their own data centre.

Industry Energetic About Change

Across the ICT industry in Asia Pacific, many of the key players are seizing the opportunities in the green ICT space.

According to Bernie Trudel, Data Center Technology Lead at Cisco Systems Asia-Pacific, the company plans to reduce its overall carbon emissions by 25 per cent by 2012. Green ICT will play a part in their reduction efforts, which includes optimising the efficiency of future Cisco data centres in multiple locations worldwide.

Mohan Krishnan, General Manager of Technology Consulting at HP Asia Pacific is a passionate advocate of green ICT. “ICT has a significant opportunity to reduce the global carbon footprint,” he says.” He notes that in order to achieve this, the industry has to overcome some obstacles. “There are many challenges in ICT—rigid infrastructure, the explosion of information, and ageing applications. It is very hard to rip out and replace any component of the system,” he says. “The industry at large is struggling to cope with the huge rate of expansion.”

As a manager of over 200 data centres, 380,000 servers, and producer over 540 million desktops worldwide, HP could significantly sway the global ICT landscape.

Cloud Computing

HP is developing several solutions to tackle the energy intensity of technology. One is taking advantage of so-called “cloud computing”, or maximizing the usage of servers that one might not actually own.

For example, a company might lease out space in its data centres to another party, rather than that other party having to invest in its own unique data centre to meet its needs. Use of the physical infrastructure is maximised, leading to operational efficiency.

According to Mr. Krishnan, virtualization and optimisation for efficiency are part of the picture. “Organizations need to build elasticity into their IT infrastructure. Cloud computing allows you to have this elasticity and scalability,” he says. “Virtualization allows systems to be optimized for actual users at any given time by enabling a single piece of hardware to support multiple systems.”

Mr. Krishnan likens cloud computing to car sharing services like Zipcar, where many users share the services a car provides, without actually having to own a vehicle full time. He also acknowledges that to be successful, there are security issues in these cloud scenarios that must be addressed so sensitive data is not breached.

Getting the Design Right

While HP focuses in many ways on optimising systems for its users, Russell Perry, Director of Marketing and Customer Insight at Emerson Networks looks at ICT from a systematic design point of view. “How we cool, power, and monitor what is going on is important,” he says.

Mr. Perry focuses on the energy logic ‘cascade’ effect: One watt saved at the server component level is a cumulative savings of about 2.83 Watts in total consumption. If servers can be more energy efficient, it saves on energy expenditure elsewhere like cooling the data centre.

He notes that the challenge often facing data centre operators comes down to a clash between operational expenditures (OpEx) and capital expenditures (CapEx). “Green ICT issues can’t be examined in isolation,” Mr. Perry says. “Companies must understand the relationship between capital expenses and operational expenses over time.”

OpEx and CapEx: Two sides to the same coin.

An investment in efficient infrastructure upfront will recoup operational costs over time. If the two are viewed in isolation, decisions to invest in energy efficient solutions are often scrapped due to the intimidating upfront cost.

Anil Trehan, Chief Technical Officer at Andrew Solutions believes that there are huge gains to be made by optimising networks.

“By optimising the existing network design to reduce power consumption, the two become positively and inexorably linked,” he says. “The more a network is optimised, the more its OpEx and carbon footprint are reduced. It is also very likely to provide a hefty tax break in the near future as governments strive to meet their carbon emissions targets.”

Renewable Energy and Efficient Technology Innovations

Gains from changing the usage patterns of data centres and optimising design can be taken further by the introduction of new technology innovations. HP is creating efficient, portable, container-based server centres. They are mobile, stackable, and because they do not require additional building infrastructure, have a lower cost.

Also, renewable energy is being increasingly tapped. Mr. Trehan notes that in remote transmission towers for mobile services especially, renewable energy can increase network reliability.

“In developing countries in Asia for example, traditional diesel-powered generators are often the target of thieves who steal diesel fuel in order to sell them in the black market,” he says. “The result of such actions is a network that is unreliable as you can never be sure that your backup power source will be available. Using alternative fuels lower the risks of pilferage [and increases reliability].”

Taking security of energy supply into account, at least one data centre in the United States was deliberately built next to a landfill to take advantage of biogas for energy generation. The close proximity to an ongoing clean energy source provided additional security for the centre, as well as lowering the energy consumed from the grid.

Whether from the technical innovation side, systems optimisation, changing usage patterns, or introducing new sources of energy, there is enormous opportunity in the green ICT space to improve environmental and economic performance together.