This article examines the widely cited claim that the network electricity use associated with a wireless personal digital assistant ͑PDA͒ is equal to the electricity consumed by a refrigerator. It compiles estimates of the data flows of wireless PDAs and related networks and allocates network and phone system electricity use based on these estimates. It also conducts sensitivity analyses to verify the robustness of these calculations. This analysis demonstrates that the network electricity use associated with a wireless PDA cannot equal that of a typical refrigerator, even under the most extreme assumptions. Our best-estimate case shows network electricity use for wireless PDAs of 0.5 kW•h/year, and therefore claims that wireless PDAs use as much electricity as a refrigerator are too high by more than a factor of 1,000. Even in our upper-limit assessment, the electricity used by a new U.S. refrigerator is about 100 times greater than the network electricity use associated with a wireless PDA.
As information and communications technology matures, the nature of the infrastructure that supports it evolves and specializes. While the telephone infrastructure had been built as a network with central offices acting as hubs, the information and communications technology maintains a similar structure, but instead, has hubs of specialized Internet data centers which house the routers and servers. This paper updates one of the first studies to document the electricity consumption and power distribution within an Internet data center. For this study, electricity billing data, metering data, and facility floor space allocation data were used to calculate computer room, total computer room, and building power densities for July 2002. The results of this 2002 study indicate that although the data center had expanded its operations by roughly 33% from the previous year and increased the electricity demand associated with the computer equipment by 55%, the total computer room power density ͑which includes cooling and auxiliary equipment͒ remained the same as the previous year at 355 W/m 2 . The facility's efforts to improve energy efficiency offset the energy demand from an increased, electrically active, computer room area. The energy-efficiency measures included better optimization of power distribution units, power management modules, computer room air-conditioning units, alterations to operating conditions, facilitywide reductions in lighting, and improved facility controls. A key recommendation is to expand this research to address the need to develop metrics to capture the energy efficiency of the data network throughput.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.