Specific knowledge about energy and ICT

With regard to the participants’ level of specific knowledge about how much energy various devices and uses of ICT consume, we find that many focus groups are able to establish some general and valid

observations on the basis of their discussions. At first, this seems a little surprising taking into account their limited general awareness about this subject. But as we will explain below, some of this specific knowledge is related to personal and often physical/tangible experiences from the participants’ own use of ICT (among other things).

In general, the participants identify (correctly) desktops/laptops and TV sets as well as streaming and gaming as belonging to the group of most energy consuming devices and activities. Some focus groups also make the observation that it is “processor demanding” activities in particular that entails a high energy consumption.

As shown later, the participants’ specific knowledge is mainly based on their practical experiences (e.g. with devices becoming warm or activities that shorten the life-time of a battery charge), but sometimes this kind of “practical knowledge” also results in incorrect or misleading observations. For example, the participants in the Danish pilot focus group conclude that internet services run on a computer are less energy consuming than on a smart phone. A misconception which is likely to be a result of their experience of smart phones quickly running out of battery if used for some specific internet activities, whereas the desktop does not run out of battery as it is plugged in all the time. Also, portable devices are typically held in the hand, and one can therefore feel the electricity consumption as heat – i.e. the device is being heated. In comparison, the use of laptops/desktops does not involve the same palpable experience of energy consumption. In this way, the electricity consumption related to laptops and (in particular) desktops is less visible compared with the electricity consumption of mobile devices with batteries. More generally, there is a widespread lack of knowledge about embodied or internet-related energy consumption, which – again – can be seen as a result of this being less “tangible” as compared with the direct electricity consumption of devices.

As described above, desktops/laptops and TV sets are in general identified by the focus groups as the most energy intensive ICT devices. In addition, some focus groups actually mention the internet as energy consuming (e.g. all the Austrian focus groups). However, in general, the focus is on the power consumed directly by the devices. An example of how the focus groups discussed the energy intensity of different ICT devices and uses are the Dutch focus group with educational science university students (NL1): The

participants in this focus group mainly think of saving energy when asked about environmental effects of their ICT use. They are aware that some uses of ICT use more power than others as they experience that their equipment runs out of energy. For example, Loes tells:

With mobile internet on your phone you need to charge it much more often and that doesn’t seem good to me. I had this mobile without internet and then I could use it for a week. Now I can use it only for one day [before having to recharge], you use a lot more power.

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In general, the power indicator on their smart phone is an important information source. Through this, some discovered that “graphics or everything to do with video are very bad” in terms of energy. Karin says:

If you play a game or watch a movie on YouTube, immediately 10-15% of your battery is gone.

In general, the focus groups include several examples of similar experiences with activities that uses much energy on smart phones. Thus, in one of the other Dutch focus groups (NL2), Jan says:

Also You Tube costs a lot of your battery: when I listen to music on my smart phone via You Tube then it is empty in the blink of an eye. That really goes fast.

The focus group with educational science student (NL1) furthermore shows how the heat that radiates from ICT devices equipment gives information about the intensity of energy use (as mentioned in several focus groups), although this seems a less reliable information source:

Evelien: I think the televisions of nowadays use much less energy Loes: but it becomes completely hot if it is on for a longer period of time

Karin: but that is also true with a laptop, the storage battery of your laptop also gets super hot (…)

Tiffany: but also your telephone, don’t forget!

Karin: not mine actually, with a game console that is also not very bad

Tiffany: I think that that will also use a lot of power, nowadays, they make it just like real and then I think it costs a lot…

Another point that these students consider to be relevant in terms of taking care of the environment is shutting off their equipment (including not leaving it in standby mode) and not letting the charger charge unnecessarily long, although not all are equally convinced of its importance:

Karin: when I wake up in the morning I take my phone out of the charger, only, sometimes, I forget my charger in the plug and then I come home and I think, wait a second, it is still in there

Loes: I don’t think that matters

Karin: well, yes, I do the same thing with my laptop if I take my laptop off the charger I leave the charger in the plug

Evelien: it will, in principle, still cost you energy Catherine: is that much?

Loes: I think it is really not much nowadays, with all those super modern machines Evelien: that I don’t know really

Loes: I always take it out. Most of the time Evelien: do you always take it out?

Catherine: yes, I am a virtuous girl, my dad became angry about this very often, so now I just listen to it.

This focus group also discuss the importance of recycling old devices.

The Danish pilot focus group makes another example of the focus group discussion on differences in energy intensity of ICT devices and uses. In relation to the exercise with placing cards with devices and uses in order of energy intensity, the participants start with suggesting that stationary PCs (desktops) and

PlayStations (game consoles) are the devices that consumes most energy. Bianca suggests that laptops also belong to group of devices/uses with the highest energy consumption, but Morten thinks that laptops do not use as much as one might think. In reply to this, Frederik states that laptops do use rather much energy, especially because “there is limited space that needs to be cooled”.

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Sebastian suggests that televisions do not use much electricity anymore – compared with the “picture tube”

(CRT) television sets ten years ago.

Lisa points at the card with the (traditional) mobile phone and suggest that it uses little energy:

Lise: An old telephone can keep at least one week [suggesting that it can run a week on one charging]

Morten: Yes, (...) but nobody says that that one [the model on the card – a Nokia phone] can keep electricity better – because it is an older model – than for instance an iPhone.

Frederik: [Objects] Yes, I would think so. The components that are inside it use less electricity. There [on smart phones / newer mobile phones] you run a network that is called either 3G or 4G – those systems use generally more electricity than the old GSM’s.

Morten: Well, okay. Yes, that I have no idea about – once it gets [too] technical.

Sebastian: It depends on how fast and how close the radio waves are on each other – depending on which frequency they run.

Frederik: That one [the Nokia phone], that’s actually just a walkie talkie multiplied by two. It is two walkie talkies in one, it is a mobile phone from old days. It belongs to the lower end [of energy consumption], and that [the Playstation and the stationary PC] is the upper end ...

In the following, the group discusses how to place the remaining cards between the lower and upper

boundaries of the energy consumption scale. Sebastian suggests that Netflix (video streaming) and games use much electricity:

Frederik: (...) if I’m streaming on my phone, it really takes a lot of electricity. Also if I just play Castle Tower Defence – that I’m just crazy with – but I was sitting and looking at it just before [he had just checked his phone’s data about its energy consumption?] – that I have now spend 20 per cent electricity on my [phone /thc] [means that he has consumed 20% of the phones battery capacity since last recharge], and of these 20 per cents the game has used 30 per cent of all the electricity – and I have been playing for a quarter of an hour. So, these kinds of things, they are just drawing much electricity on the phone.

Frederik suggests that “virtual world” games belong to high energy consumption. Sebastian thinks that televisions do not consume much energy – “Well, I don’t know what televisions are using – about 400 watts, I think – they are not using so much”. [400 watt is actually quite a lot for a television set]. Frederik

[correctly] adds: “But it also depends on whether it is plasma or LCD et cetera”. Sebastian is not so sure:

“No, I think that it actually has to do with the colour values on the screen”.

The group discusses whether online games use more or less energy than offline games. Frederik suggests that it is the graphics that are the important thing: “It depends on the graphics – it is the graphics that almost dictates how much electricity a game uses.”

Besides the importance of graphics (how “heavy” the graphics are), the focus group also seems to reach a consensus on that ICT uses with streaming involves higher energy consumption than ICT uses without streaming. Sebastian adds: “For instance with Netflix – the better internet [connection] you have, the higher is the quality that you are streaming.”

About the differences between smart phones and laptops, Bianca says:

It is actually easy to see on your phone [how much energy it uses], because there you keep an eye on how much electricity there is left, because it dies [goes empty of electricity on the battery]. But the laptop is just normally plugged in – and the stationary [computer] is also plugged in.

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There is some confusion with regard to whether wi-fi uses more or less energy than mobile broadband (2G and 3G).

About the energy consumption related to video streaming (Netflix) on tablet, some of the participants discuss:

Sebastian: Also, if you are streaming Netflix, for instance, on your iPad, when you can indeed feel that – if you are running HD – that it gets hot on the backside, because it works. And heat is also energy, so it must also use some energy.

Lisa: Does it have to be HD – when an iPad is so small?

Morten: Everything has to be in HD.

Lisa: Okay.

Morten: (...) You can feel that it is hot on the back side. I can also feel that on my phone if I’m playing, for instance, or streaming. (#2 - 00:15)

The participants often use mobile broadband – especially in school because it is difficult to log on the wi-fi in the school.

The outcome of the exercise with sorting ICT devices and uses in order of size of energy consumption

As illustrated by the examples above, battery life-time and the heat production are two very important sources for the focus group participants’ knowledge about the power consumption of different devices and uses of ICT. In many cases, this gives a reliable and valid insight into differences in energy intensity, but as already pointed out, the practical experiences with ICT and energy consumption is also misleading in particular two ways: First of all, the tangible experiences of energy use are limited to the direct energy consumption of devices and do not include other types of energy consumption like embodied energy or derived energy consumption in the internet infrastructure. Secondly, as experiences of heating and short battery-life times are mainly associated with the use of (small) portable devices, the energy intensities of other devices like laptops and (in particular) desktops might be ignored. However, it is an important finding

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of this study that young people actually do have some (in many cases valid) knowledge about ICT and energy consumption through their practical and “physical” experiences with their use of ICT devices. This could be an entry point for raising young people’s awareness of ICT and energy consumption and a starting point for discussions about ICT and energy.