Networked Electronics Waste 400 TW/h Per Year

Greentech Media and Clean Capital both carried the story last week when the International Energy Agency pointed to the 400 terawatt-hours of wasted electricity—the equivalent of 133 mid-sized coal plants, according to Greentech’s Katherine Tweed—lost to network-enabled devices around the world. “The problem is not that these devices are often in standby mode, but rather that they typically use much more power than they should to maintain a connection and communicate with the network,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. Clean Capital’s James Noble writes: “For the average household, this means tens of dollars for every device each year in additional energy costs.” But “the cumulative impact of 14 billion such devices—smart phones, tablets and game consoles—worldwide is staggering.” By 2030, Greentech reports, there will be 100 billion network-enabled devices worldwide.