Overview of the ITU Report on
“Boosting Smart Grids Through
Energy Efficient ICT”
Flavio Cucchietti – Telecom Italia, Turin, Italy
Franco Davoli, Matteo Repetto –University of Genoa, Italy
Carlo Tornelli, Gianluigi Proserpio – RSE, Milan, Italy
International
Telecommunication
Union
Committed to Connecting the World
Outline
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Climate change and GHG emissions
Responsibility of the electrical system in GHG emissions
The need for Smart Grids
The role of ICT in reducing GHG emissions
ICT and the Smart Grid
Energy footprint of ICT infrastructures
Smart grids in different economies
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Climate change and GHG emissions
GHG emissions are expected to grow much faster
than in the last two centuries.
GHG emissions are largely
ascribable to production of
electricity.
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Responsibility of the electrical
system in GHG emissions - 1
Large fluctuations in
electricity demand during
seasons and daily hours…
… require overprovisioning
power plants and the
electrical grid.
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Responsibility of the electrical
system in GHG emissions - 2
Production is made by a mix of
efficient - yet static - base bulk
and dynamic - yet inefficient generation during peak hours.
Oil and coal fired power plants are
the most widespread solution for
bulk generation. They are
responsible for GHG emissions for
electricity production.
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The need for Smart Grids
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Sustainability of the electrical system requires the evolution towards
new paradigms (Smart Grid), pursuing high efficiency and
integration of renewables
 this is expected to cut down GHG emissions.
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Issues for the implementation of Smart Energy Grids:
 Load management, Distributed Generation, Microgrids, Energy
Storage, Grid Management, Market operations, Electrical
Vehicles, …
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Much intelligence is needed to:
 retrieve, share, process, store and transmit information;
 make grid management automatic, reliable, resilient, safe and
secure.
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The role of ICT in reducing GHG
emissions
The ICT sector can enable emission reductions in a number of ways:
Standardizing:
ICT can provide information in the form of standards on
energy consumption and emissions, across the sectors;
Monitoring:
ICT can incorporate monitoring information into the design and
control of energy use;
Accounting:
ICT can provide the capabilities and platforms to improve
accountability of energy and carbon;
Rethinking:
ICT can offer innovations that capture energy efficiency
opportunities across buildings/homes, transport, power, manufacturing and
other infrastructures, and provide alternatives to current ways of operating,
learning, living, working and travelling;
Transforming:
ICT can apply smart and integrated approaches to energy
management of systems and processes, including benefits from both
automation and behavioural change and develop alternatives to high carbon
International
activities, across all sectors of the economy.
Telecommunication
Union
Committed to Connecting the World
The role of ICT in reducing GHG
emissions
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Cutting off the carbon footprint
 By enabling smart applications:
 smart motors, smart buildings, smart
logistics, smart grid, dematerialization;
 15% of total predicted emissions!
 By reducing ICT’s own
footprint
 to avoid wasting
part of the
previous gains.
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ICT and the Smart Grid
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ICT supplies the pillars for the development of the Smart Grid
 data management and processing
 communication infrastructures
 control and management operations
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Issues
 too many contexts
 system of systems
 heterogeneous communication technologies
 integration and interoperability
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ICT and the Smart Grid – 2
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Layout of the communication system:
 Distributed services and applications
 SOA, REST, Web Services
 Data models and information exchange
 CIM, IEC61850, DLMS/COSEM
 Networking
 SN, LAN/HAN, NAN/MAN, WAN
 Communication media and technologies
 Wired (Ethernet, xDSL), Power-Line (HomePlug, HomePNA,
HomeGrid), Wireless (ZigBee, Z-wave, WiFi, WiMax, GSM,
UMTS/LTE).
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Energy footprint of ICT
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Energy footprint of ICT is
continuously increasing.
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Large scale deployment for the
implementation of Smart Grids
will further raise current
forecasts!
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Energy footprint of ICT – 2
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Homes and Distribution grids are
expected to be the most critical
environments.
 millions of such sites in the whole
system.
An example: Future broadband network’s Energy footprint estimation
Home
Access
Metro/transport
Core
power consumption
(Wh)
10
1,280
6,000
10,000
number of devices
17,500,000
27,344
1,750
175
overall consumption
(GWh/year)
1,533
307
92
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Sources: 1) BroadBand Code of Conduct V.3 (EC-JRC) and “inertial” technology improvements to 2015-2020 (home and access cons.)
2) Telecom Italia measurements and evaluations (power consumption of metro/core network and number of devices)
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Energy footprint of ICT – 3
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Energy usage of ICT equipment is increasing
in homes, owing to:
 more ICT devices
 laptops, set-top-boxes, smart
phones, handhelds, tablets, … ;
 most devices are left
powered on even when
not used
 often to maintain
“network presence”;
 inefficient standby states
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Energy footprint of ICT – 4
 By considering only the home network (which is the most
critical one, due to numerousness), with reference to a
medium-size country (Italy)
o devices’ energy consumption as per the EC BroadBand Code of Conduct
2012 target
o 33,000,000 homes and small enterprises
o Consumption of
 Meters: 2 W each – 578 GWh/year;
 Home gateway (ADSL – sharable with other functionalities): 5.35 W –
1547 GWh/year;
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Energy footprint of ICT – 5
 Consumption of
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 Sensors/actuators, 10 elements per home (could be much more):
o based on Low speed power line: 10 × 2 W each – 5780
GWh/year;
o based on ZigBee: 10 × 0.25 W each – 723 GWh/year;
 Displaying device: 3 W – 867 GWh/year;
 no standby mode considered, as all devices today are expected to be
always on.
In this scenario, overall consumption per household could range between ~13
and ~30 W in the worst case, which results in ~3.7 – ~8.7 TWh per year.
By assuming a figure of 2500 kWh/year for a typical household, the range
above would correspond to a 4.5% to 10.5% energy consumption increase
for each customer.
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Energy footprint of ICT – 6
Technical considerations, all
networking technologies
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Energy footprint of ICT – 7
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The path towards a Green ICT includes:
 Re-engineering of devices’ hardware
 energy-efficient silicon;
 reduction of complexity.
 Dynamic adaptation of performance
 power scaling;
 low-power idle.
 Smart standby states
 proxying network presence;
 virtualization.
Both at
• device level
• whole network level
(energy-aware traffic
engineering)
Estimated energy saving in
2015-2020 perspective
telecommunication networks
by the ECONET project –
Telecom Italia use case.
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Smart grids in different economies
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Electricity is a key driver for economic development and social
wellness.
Disparity among different countries is evident in
 production of electricity;
 grid infrastructures.
Most developing countries have power grids with limited coverage and
low efficiency.
In many developing countries just a very small part of the population
has access to the electrical grid!
 The need for “Just” Grid.
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Smart grids in different
economies – 2
World electricity generation from 1971 to
2009 by region (TWh). (Asia does not
include China.)
Regional electricity system use
and loss of electricity
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Smart grids in different
economies – 3
Regional power pools in Africa (Maghreb
power pool is not shown).
High voltage transmission grid in Europe.
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Smart grids in different
economies – 4
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Smart Grids have the potential to fill the gap
 sustainable and low-cost production of electricity through large
integration of renewables;
 microgrids and islanding mode of operation for rural areas;
 improvement of efficiency by grid monitoring;
 reliable and cheaper supply of electricity by demand-response
mechanisms;
 new business models to address specific needs of low-income
customers and reduce administrative costs related to meter
readings and billing.
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Key issues, challenges and
opportunities for ICT
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Modern paradigms often rely on rich and flexible data description and transmission
o may turn into major transmission delays, network load and latency,
o could lead to unacceptable performance for time-critical applications.
Coexistence of multiple technologies
o wireline offers higher performance, but with higher deployment costs (remote
areas),
o wireless provides cost-effective solutions, yet with worse performance and some
limitations to reach underground installations; further, interferences are likely for
unlicensed technologies.
Survivability of the telecommunication network to blackouts
o needed to enable automatic and prompt recovery from failures of the electrical
grid,
o guaranteed through back-up batteries and diesel generators
 lifetime of many hours (or even a day) in central offices, but few hours in small
installations
 limited by technical, economical and environmental factors.
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More information
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Contact: Cristina Bueti (greenstandard@itu.int)
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http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/climatechange/
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Thank YOU
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