Green Information & Communications Technologies The Power of Innovation A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE ON GREEN ICT Network infrastructures to curb carbon emissions ITU Green Standards Week Rome, Italy Session 8: September 8th 2011 Dr. Charles Despins © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 2011 G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies 2011 G-ICT The Power of Innovation Green ICT in Canada Prompt: • • • • Industry-university R&D consortium headquartered in Montreal, Canada; Mixed public & private sector funding; 30 industry members and 12 university members; Focus on various industry vertical markets (Green ICT since 2008). ICT in Canada: • Represents 1 megaton of GHG emissions (<1%); • Application in various sectors could curb GHG emissions by 20 megatons per year: - 3.2 M cars off the road - 7% of Canada’s annual Kyoto obligations. • Estimated annual benefits: $7.5B-$12.9B. 2 Sources: Climate Check, WWF Canada © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 Green Information & Communications Technologies The Power of Innovation From energy efficiency to GHG emission reductions Many Green ICT R&D initiatives focus on energy efficiency: • Cost driver e.g. for the data-intensive wireless industry; • A theme on which ICT researchers traditionally excel. However, the link between energy efficiency and GHG emission reductions can be but is not always direct … • ICTs operate 24/7 and produce “scope 2” GHG emissions • If power grid is based entirely on fossil fuels, the link between energy consumption and GHG emissions is direct … BUT … • Power grids are often a mix of fossil-fuel (cheap) and clean energy (more expensive) sources … utilities will leverage energy efficiency gains to limit the use of clean energy sources. • In such cases, energy efficiency gains thus translate into zero gains in terms of GHG emission reduction … 3 © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 2011 G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies The Power of Innovation Green ICT: maximizing economic & environmental benefits 1. Integrate ICT design with power generation considerations • Requires holistic approach involving different ICT subsectors, power generation and sustainable development experts 2. Develop GHG emission standards for ICT • ISO14064 protocol is difficult to apply in the ICT sector • The ITU is a leader in developing such standards to quantify the GHG emission reduction potential of ICTs. 3. Tap research funds targeted to GHG emission reductions • In many jurisdictions, these funds are managed by environment departments who may not always sufficiently aware of the G-ICT opportunity • The ICT research community has yet to significantly tap these sources 4 of funds … © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 2011 G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies 2011 G-ICT The Power of Innovation The carbon market: “cap & trade” perspectives GHG emission limits are gradually being imposed throughout the world in various industry sectors • The ICT sector is not one of these … so far … • Taxes on fossil fuels are often directed to GHG emission reduction funds “Cap & trade” regimes are being proposed e.g. North America • Purchasing & trading of “carbon credits” if emission caps are exceeded • ICT GHG standards will allow the ICT industry to participate in this “carbon economy” Examples of “cap & trade” proposals and GHG registries • Western Climate Initiative (www.westernclimateinitiative.org): 7 USA states & 4 Canada provinces • Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (www.rggi.org): 10 USA (northeast) states © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 5 Green Information & Communications Technologies 2011 G-ICT The Power of Innovation Greenstar (GSN): a zero-carbon telecom network pilot project http://www.greenstarnetwork.com GreenStar CANARIE 6 © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 Green Information & Communications Technologies 2011 G-ICT The Power of Innovation Greenstar (GSN): a zero-carbon network pilot GSN objectives and underlying principles: – GSN: an open architecture ICT service delivery network – Leverage virtualization concepts so that user applications can be moved, in a seamless way for the user, to data centers in close proximity to renewable energy sources. – Renewable energy use is also optimized within GSN: energy loss in transmitting power is higher than when data is moved over networks. – Development of ICT GHG emission standards (ITU link). – Utilize GSN to generate carbon credits in a perspective of selling such credits generated by relocation of service implementation within GSN. 7 © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 Green Information & Communications Technologies 2011 G-ICT The Power of Innovation Greenstar partners Partners (Canada): Université du Québec à Montréal SIGMACO Canadian Standards Association (CSA), Climate Change Division Partners (international): Spain © Prompt inc. Ireland USA Belgium ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 China 8 Green Information & Communications Technologies The Power of Innovation Going forward … Extend virtualization concept to backbone and access portions of networks: e.g. • Router and switching virtualization; • Wireless access virtualization: Only 15% of energy consumed by a base station is radiated; Virtualize signal processing functions with radio-over-fiber architectures; Build upon initial work in GENI (USA) and 4WARD (FP7-EU). ICT is a (relatively unexploited) low-hanging fruit in terms of GHG emission reductions: • Fossil fuel sources won’t vanish in the foreseeable future … • Climate change dilemma: reconciling economic and environmental benefits often perceived as difficult to achieve. • ICT opportunities: intelligent transport systems, domotics, industry 9 processes, etc. © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 2011 G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies The Power of Innovation Any jurisdiction exploiting renewable sources of energy can be a hub for the 21st century, digital, low-carbon economy. • Virtualizing ICT infrastructure and co-locating data centers with renewable energy sources: Green benefit: energy efficiency (resulting from transmission of data instead of energy) and GHG emission reductions. Digital benefit: economic incentive for (regional) network deployments. Productivity benefit: economic incentive for investment in ICT products and services. Green ICT & the digital economy © Prompt inc. Sustainable development & economic development ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 2011 G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies 2011 G-ICT The Power of Innovation For more on these G-ICT concepts: C. Despins et al., Leveraging Green Communications for Carbon Emission Reductions: Techniques, Testbeds and Emerging Carbon Footptint Standards, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 49, no. 8, August 2011, pp. 101-109. For Formore moreinformation informationon onPrompt Prompt: www.promptinc.org Dr. Charles Despins President & CEO +1-514.875.0032 ext. 101 CDespins@promptinc.org © Prompt inc. Mr. Jacques Mc Neill Green ICT Coordinator +1-514.875.0032 ext. 105 JMcNeill@promptinc.org ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 11