IT delivers ten-fold energy savings for rest of the economy

For every extra kilowatt per hour of electricity used by ICT equipment, the US economy increased overall energy savings by a factor of around 10.

That is the headline-grabbing conclusion of research released yesterday by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE), which claims that the current focus on soaring IT energy use has distracted from the net energy savings IT systems deliver for other sectors of the economy.

The report, Information and Communication Technologies: The Power of Productivity, argues that IT's role in the design of new products and services and its ability to replace many energy intensive processes has led to a net improvement in energy use. For example, the ubiquity of email has reduced the need for more energy intensive means of communication, such as direct mail.

It argued that the ICT systems were subject to an "energy paradox" whereby " more attention tends to be paid to the energy consuming characteristics of ICT than to the broader, economy wide, energy saving capacity that emerges through their widespread and systematic application."

"Achieving greater levels of energy productivity requires that we start asking the right set of questions about the relationship between ICT systems and total energy use," said John "Skip" Laitner, ACEEE Director of Economic Policy Analysis and study co-author. "Rather than focusing only on the direct energy consumed by ICT, we should instead recognise the ways in which these technologies have helped our economy become dramatically more efficient."

The research looked data for the past 37 years on the energy intensity of the US economy – ie. how much energy is required to generate a unit of GDP – and found that improvements in energy efficiency accelerated from 1996 as internet adoption soared. While US energy intensity declined 1.8 percent per year between 1970 and 1995, it declined at 2.4 per cent between 1996 and 2006, largely as a consequence of the widespread adoption of ICT innovations.

It further argued that ICT had helped "decouple" economic growth and energy demand, noting that while US economic output has expanded by around 65 per cent since 1990 the demand for energy resources grew by only 23 per cent.

The report follows a similar study last year from the US Consumer Electronics Association, which argued that many consumer electronics helped to deliver a net reduction in carbon emissions by enabling people to work and shop from home.

In related news, the US Environmental Protection Agency this week announced new Energy Star specifications for digital televisions which will require TVs carrying the Energy Star label to be up to 30 per cent more efficient than conventional models. The new specification will come into effect from November this year and are estimated to save around $1bn a year in energy costs.