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A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE ON GREEN ICT Network infrastructures to curb carbon emissions

A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE ON GREEN ICT Network infrastructures to curb carbon emissions ITU Green Standards Week Rome, Italy Session 8: September 8 th 2011 Dr. Charles Despins. Green ICT in Canada. Prompt:

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A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE ON GREEN ICT Network infrastructures to curb carbon emissions

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  1. A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVEON GREEN ICT Network infrastructures to curb carbon emissions ITU Green Standards Week Rome, Italy Session 8: September 8th 2011 Dr. Charles Despins

  2. GreenICT 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. Sources: Climate Check, WWF Canada

  3. 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 …

  4. 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 of funds …

  5. 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

  6. Greenstar (GSN): a zero-carbon telecom network pilot project http://www.greenstarnetwork.com

  7. 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.

  8. Greenstar partners Partners (Canada): Université du Québec à Montréal SIGMACO Canadian Standards Association (CSA), Climate Change Division Partners (international): Belgium China Spain Ireland USA

  9. 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 processes, etc.

  10. 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.

  11. For more on these G-ICT concepts: C. Despins et al., Leveraging Green Communications for CarbonEmissionReductions: Techniques, Testbedsand EmergingCarbonFootptint Standards, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 49, no. 8, August 2011, pp. 101-109. For more information on Prompt For more information on Prompt: www.promptinc.org Mr. Jacques Mc Neill Green ICT Coordinator +1-514.875.0032 ext. 105 JMcNeill@promptinc.org Dr. Charles Despins President & CEO +1-514.875.0032 ext. 101 CDespins@promptinc.org

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