Cable companies are looking for ways to reduce power consumption. Call it going green, or call it operational efficiency, the industry has identified the access network as the most power-consuming element of the network and is looking to collaborate with its vendors to try to reduce power usage.
Between 73 percent and 83 percent of cable’s overall energy consumption is by hubs and headends, as well as the access network power supplies powering the active equipment on the HFC network, according to detailed SCTE analysis of energy usage of a cross section of major operators.
If not reduced (or at least minimized), power consumption could get out of hand. The report matched data usage projections from Cisco Systems to energy cost estimates from the United States Department of Energy to determine that annual cable energy costs could rise from more than $1 billion currently to as much as $4 billion per year by 2020.
The analysis was presented at a meeting of those interested in participating in the SCTE’s Energy 2020 program, which aims to reduce overall energy consumption significantly by the year 2020. The meeting was attended by representatives of more than 80 MSOs and cable equipment manufacturers.
The report quantified something that every cable operator is well aware of: headends and hubs draw a tremendous amount of power. In smaller states where headend facilities are located, cable companies can rank among the top 10 energy consumers.
The problem is not just a matter of going green or managing energy consumption for the sake of saving money. The largest headends and data centers dissipate a tremendous amount of heat which, if not handled efficiently, becomes detrimental to equipment.
If there was a surprise in the report, it might have been how much power is consumed in the access network itself.
“While devices in the edge facilities and in the network individually are not the greatest consumers of power in our networks, the sheer number of those devices makes those areas high priorities for the reduction of consumption and cost on a per-unit basis,” said Daniel Howard, senior vice president and CTO of SCTE.
According to Howard, the findings announced yesterday represent a two-pronged cost-avoidance opportunity for operators and vendors: the replacement of existing plant and headend gear with more efficient equipment as part of normal operational maintenance, as well as the design and deployment of more efficient equipment as operators migrate to CCAP, remote PHY, PON and other architectures.
“Over the next five years, we’re committed to reducing power consumption and energy costs on a unit basis by 20 percent or more, to reducing grid dependency by 10 percent and to optimizing technical facilities and data center footprints by 20 percent,” Howard said. “This is a massive effort that will require two contributions by our vendors: collaboration on the standards that will make this possible, and design and manufacture of equipment that will meet operators’ energy management specifications.”
In the report, SCTE noted that market data centers and national distribution centers represent 3- to 7 percent of the industry’s power usage, despite the presence of servers, video processing equipment, routers and other higher-consumption equipment. Backbone and co-location sites (1- to 2 percent) and administrative offices (10- to 21 percent) represent the remainder.
Energy 2020 is co-chaired by representatives of the two biggest cable companies in the world. The co-chairs are Comcast Cable’s John Schanz and Liberty Global’s Balan Nair. The program is intended to create alignment on standards and operational practices, to drive design and implementation of equipment, and to create SCTE training resources that will enable workforce teams to optimize technology for maximum efficiency. Energy 2020’s initial areas of focus include: Energy Metrics; Energy Baselines; Access Network Efficiency; Alternate Energy; Energy in Operations; Facility Classification; Energy Efficiency in Facilities; Density and Consolidation; Fleet Optimization; and Facility Climate Technology Optimization.
