How does the ICT industry achieve net zero emissions?
Under the cross pressure of 'overall energy shortage and rising energy prices' and 'rapid rise in digital demand', the sustainable development of ICT industry has only two paths: green and energy efficiency.
In terms of carbon neutrality, many countries in the world now aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, while keeping the global warming within 1.5 ℃. In addition, mobile networks in many countries are now shifting from 4G to 5G. There will be more digital demand in the world, including the third world countries, which brings green and energy-efficient goals.
In the long run, EU ICT companies will accelerate the realization of higher sustainability and power security, but this requires different technical measures. In the short term, in the case of energy shortage, EU ICT companies are not as green and energy efficient as we imagined: for example, on October 6 this year, the telecom company lliad group decided to shut down some night bands at night, which reduced power consumption by 10%; Orange, the operator, will shut down the power of thousands of stations during the low hour every day.
n this context, 'adopting more green electricity and improving equipment efficiency' is the top priority for ICT enterprises to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality. According to the forecast data of Cisco (on the left of the figure above): from 2017 to 2022, the global monthly mobile data flow will increase several times from per capita per user to per average terminal device.
Looking at the expected pace of net zero carbon emissions in the ICT industry, most of the more advanced companies plan to achieve 'carbon neutrality' by 2035 (including 2035). Now some operators in Europe have achieved 'carbon neutrality' at the company level by purchasing green electricity or carbon indicators. By 2050, most ICT enterprises in the world will achieve net zero carbon emissions. If these measures are not taken, the total carbon emissions of ICT enterprises will continue to increase, because the improvement of equipment energy efficiency cannot offset the trend of rapid growth of users, which will result in their actual carbon dioxide emissions much higher than before.
How does the ICT industry get out of the 'Malthus trap'?
The 'Malthusian trap' of ICT industry lies in the contradiction between the shortage of energy resources and the rising demand for digitalization. Relevant enterprises need to take some measures to get out of the 'Malthusian trap'.
First of all, we should bear the carbon responsibility. Enterprises should take responsibility to create business advantages in a more environmentally friendly way.
Second, accelerate the deployment of new generation more efficient data transmission technology. ICT companies should focus on the net zero road map and seek support from policies and consumers to speed up their development.
Thirdly, the physical production activities will be transferred to the digital field of automation. Invest in the development and deployment of digital technology, create new ways of working, and make industrial energy and materials more efficient.
Finally, we encourage discussion on the carbon emission consequences of digital production. Accelerate the development of science and technology, ensure the development of carbon emission technology, and seize the first opportunity in the field of carbon emission.
At present, some ICT enterprises have started ESG (environmental, social responsibility and corporate governance) practices, such as the 2020 carbon dioxide sequestration project in Orange, France; Telefo, Spain ́ Nica 2021Q4 issued green bonds and increased carbon absorption projects; Vodafone 2021Q2 green energy project, etc.
China's three major operators have taken more measures, including China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom's green energy/energy conservation/material recycling projects in 2019-2022. The 'East Data and West Computing' project needs to build a lot of infrastructure. The three major operators will use many technologies such as natural cold sources, as well as some AI base station energy-saving technologies to reduce the consumption under unit traffic, including some energy conservation and emission reduction management methods and measures issued by enterprises in terms of overall corporate policies.
The energy consumption of China's data center has accounted for a large part of the total energy consumption. If it is not controlled, it will greatly hinder the progress of China's carbon neutral goal in the future. The 'east counting and west counting' is the regional balance of energy and computing power. There are many users in the eastern region of China, including Internet companies, whose data volume is generated very quickly, but energy indicators are relatively tight. The western region has a large amount of clean energy, which can be better used. Therefore, the positioning of the computing power center in the western region emerges. For example, some model training and data storage will be placed in the western region, and some time sensitive applications will be deployed in the eastern region, so that the services provided by ICT enterprises will not be interfered by the delay. Placing a large number of high computing power equipment in the west can help the data center further reduce the proportion of power consumption.
Of course, there are some differences between China's carbon neutralization and Europe's carbon neutralization. Wang Shen believes that all countries (regions) have policies at the national level, and our country's outstanding advantage lies in the realization of the project of 'counting from the east to the west'. It is difficult for other countries to carry out such government level coordination. China's 'counting from the east to the west' project is faster in implementation efficiency, but since Europe has been implementing for many years, the proportion of green electricity in this region is up to 40%, and this data does not include nuclear power. In this respect, European countries are the targets we should catch up with.
Increase the proportion of ICT infrastructure carbon emissions
From a higher level, how to improve the infrastructure carbon emission/business ratio of ICT from an overall perspective. In 2021, Huawei proposed the network carbon emission intensity indicator - NCI (Network Carbon Intensity). In a certain period of time, the ratio of the entire network carbon emission to the data volume.
Two concepts have emerged around NCI: encouraging the increase of data flow and encouraging the reduction of carbon emissions. The current policy is mainly in two forms. The first is to reduce the absolute energy consumption of the network, and the second is to improve the network energy efficiency to make more bytes per network. For example, with 5G, the energy of 5G is 90% less than that of 4G. Although the absolute energy consumption of 5G has increased, its data traffic has also increased far.
How to improve the carbon emission intensity of the network? There are three main routes. The first is to increase the proportion of green power, including purchasing green power directly from the grid. Many European ICT enterprises will purchase green power from the grid; In some remote areas, such as desert or no man's land, base stations are built to provide digital services. Distributed devices can be used to supplement power generation through independent power generation or wired power grids. It can also adjust measures to local conditions, including natural wind cooling and water cooling, to cool the data infrastructure.
The second is to improve the energy efficiency of equipment. For power equipment, it is necessary to reduce the use of energy consumption, from copper network to optical fiber. In terms of data, if we consider from the perspective of construction, we should try to reduce the cost and time of reconstruction, as well as modular data centers and natural air cooling of equipment.
The third is to achieve intelligent energy management. In the ICT industry, the input is energy and the output is digital business. AI driven data energy algorithm is used to regulate the whole network or energy, and fine measurement is made to ensure that energy is not wasted as much as possible. The difference between peak and valley can be smoothed out through AI, such as energy efficiency optimization through charging and discharging, and the location of recommended sites. The planning stage can help to plan for energy conservation.
Finally, Wang Shen stressed that the ICT industry is not only an industry oriented to terminal consumption, but also a very important infrastructure. What it leverages is the operation of various industries in the world. According to the data of GeSI, a third-party analysis agency, ICT technology is expected to reduce global carbon emissions by 20% (12.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent) by 2030, 10 times its own carbon emissions. In general, green ICT can move a larger green world.