World Energy Saving Day 2024: Reducing the Footprint of Video Streaming

World Energy Saving Day 2024

October 21 is World Energy Saving Day, a global initiative to raise awareness about energy consumption and the need to reduce it. As video streaming shifts from subscriber growth to profitability, it’s important to recognize its environmental impact. With streaming now a daily activity for many, we need to consider the energy used when watching TV, movies, or live games. This blog post outlines where energy is consumed in content delivery and efforts to reduce it for streaming services

Energy Consumption vs Carbon Footprint

When considering the carbon footprint of video streaming, it’s important to clarify that energy consumption in video networks doesn’t directly correspond to carbon emissions. The carbon footprint, in a first approximation, can be split into two main parts, manufacturing of the equipment and their usage.

Usage involves electricity consumption, which significantly impacts the carbon footprint based on the energy source used. For example, if the electricity comes from fossil fuels, the carbon emissions will be higher compared to electricity generated from renewable sources like wind or solar. Therefore, while electricity consumption is a critical factor in understanding the overall carbon footprint, the specific energy source determines the extent of carbon emissions associated with streaming.

While shifting to renewable energy is a significant step in reducing our carbon footprint, it’s equally important to decrease the overall energy consumption itself, as even renewable sources have limitations in capacity and sustainability.

Understanding Energy Consumption in Streaming

Streaming video requires energy all along the chain but mostly at three key stages: preparation, delivery, and consumption. Interestingly, the bulk of energy consumption doesn’t come from the networks that deliver the content, but from end-user devices like TVs, smartphones, laptops, and home internet equipment as we can see in the figure below.

Nevertheless, by 2025, data centers, which play a significant role in powering the cloud services behind many streaming services, could consume as much energy as Switzerland generates in three years. This highlights the need for innovative solutions to optimize both network and device energy efficiency (source).  

Carbon Trust : Carbon Impact of Video Streaming

Focusing on Delivery: Optimizing Streaming Infrastructure

At the network level, energy consumption depends primarily on deployed capacity, rather than how much the network is actually used, which means energy is consumed continuously, even when demand is low.

power consumption network usage

In most cases the infrastructure is built to handle peak demand meaning that the servers are rarely used at their full capacity, but still consume a lot of electricity. The good news is that there are solutions to avoid deploying servers that will be very rarely used and therefore dramatically reduce the energy consumption of video streaming.

Solutions to Reduce Energy Consumption in Streaming

The shift from traditional broadcasting to streaming services may lead to more energy-efficient models as infrastructure evolves. Here are some solutions designed to optimize network efficiency and energy use in content delivery:

  • High-Performance Streaming Servers: By deploying highly efficient streaming servers, service providers can reduce the number of servers required to stream large amounts of content, cutting down the energy needed to operate these networks.
  • Multicast ABR :  This technology allows for the distribution of a single video stream to multiple viewers, even for very large numbers. Particularly useful for live sports events, multicast ABR smooths traffic peaks, reducing the need for additional infrastructure and  the energy consumed.
  • Mutualized Content Caching: Despite ISPs focusing on optimizing their internal video services over the years, these improvements typically do not extend to external traffic, especially from popular streaming platforms. Enabling content providers to utilize these optimizations within the ISPs’ networks could reduce network infrastructure equipment and costs and decrease the global streaming’s carbon footprint. By caching content locally within Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks, redundant infrastructure from third-party Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) can be reduced. This system allows content to be retrieved from local, mutualized caches, decreasing network traffic and cutting energy use across the board.
  • Green orchestration: Often, the servers deployed are not used or not to their full capacity, but still switched on. Turning some servers off – after redirecting remaining streaming connections to other servers – and thus reducing the number of running servers can bring significant energy savings.  Through CDN solutions that are elastic and allow process orchestration as well as seamless sessions transfer, we can concentrate the load on a minimum number of servers, free capacity during off-hours to switch off some servers and reduce the energy consumed.

Limitations: The Challenge of Measuring Energy Use

Despite advances in more energy-efficient technology, the measurement of energy consumption in the streaming industry remains complex. It involves multiple players—content providers, ISPs, CDNs, etc.—and no standardized model has yet been agreed upon to track energy usage across these different actors.

At Broadpeak, we are committed to making progress. We’ve developed a new KPI in our monitoring tool that helps our customers track the energy consumed by our software within their systems. While this is just a first step, it highlights the importance of gathering data and working together across the industry to develop a global standard for measuring energy usage.

We are also participating in the work done by Greening of Streaming to create a common language and metrics for the industry to foster progress in the energy consumption measurements.

Collaboration Is Key: Reducing Energy in Streaming Together

Achieving large-scale energy reductions in streaming will require industry-wide collaboration.

Broadpeak has recently been involved, together with Bouygues Telecom, TF1, TIM, RAI, Du, Edgio and Human Not Robots, in a TM Forum Catalyst Project [1]  exploring ways to reduce the financial and environmental costs of video traffic. The partners explored how CSPs can open their multicast and unicast network capacity to live content providers . The results shown a potential reduction of 80% to 90% of energy consumption. 

Beyond technical solutions, industry collaboration is essential for reducing the energy footprint of streaming. Greening of Streaming, which Broadpeak co-founded, brings together companies to share best practices and develop better engineering. The goal is to reduce energy use without compromising the viewer experience addressing the growing environmental concerns within the industry and beyond.

As the streaming continues to grow globally, it’s important for all of us—technology providers, ISPs, OTT platforms, and content creators—to come together to work on sustainable solutions. Through initiatives like the TM FORUM Catalyst Project and Greening of Streaming or others we invite everyone in the industry to collaborate, share knowledge, and drive meaningful progress in making streaming more energy efficient. By collaborating, streaming services and telecommunications companies can optimize energy consumption through better utilization of existing resources.

 

What Can You Do as User?

10 Practical Steps to Reduce Energy Consumption While Streaming

We can’t ignore the embodied carbon footprint of devices, a major source of energy consumption. In the EU, emissions from making smartphones, laptops, and TVs often exceed the energy used by networks. This makes extending device lifespan and choosing refurbished models as important as improving streaming efficiency. Reducing the environmental impact means addressing the full lifecycle of devices, not just network power.

As individuals, we can help lower energy use while streaming. Here are some practical tips:

  • Keep Devices as Long as Possible: Extend the lifespan of your devices to avoid unnecessary replacements. Only buy new devices when your current ones are no longer functional. Consider purchasing refurbished or reconditioned devices as a more sustainable option.
  • Avoid Increasing the Number of Devices: Limit the number of electronic devices at home to reduce overall energy consumption.
  • Unplug Devices: Always unplug chargers and electronic devices when they are not in use. Devices in standby mode still consume electricity.
  • Use Energy-Saving Modes: Activate energy-saving settings on your devices, including TVs and computers. This can help reduce power consumption when the device is idle.
  • Optimize Your Wi-Fi Usage: Turn off your Wi-Fi router when it’s not in use, like when you go to sleep, or use a timer to ensure it only operates during certain hours, conserving energy.
  • Choose Efficient Devices: If you must purchase new streaming devices, consider their energy consumption and battery life. Opt for models that are rated for energy efficiency.
  • Use Smart Power Strips: When it’s time to replace your old power strip, consider a smart power strip. These nifty devices detect when your electronics aren’t in use and automatically cut off power, helping you save energy effortlessly.
  • Always Stream Using Wi-Fi: Stream over Wi-Fi rather than 4G/5G when possible, as mobile data consumes up to 5 times more energy per gigabyte than fixed networks (source).
  • Stream During Off-Peak Hours: If possible, try to schedule your streaming for times when energy demand is lower, which can help reduce the overall load on the power grid.
  • Adjust Streaming Quality: Lowering the video quality on streaming platforms when high-definition is not necessary can reduce the amount of data transmitted, thus saving energy.
World Energy Saving Day 2024 10 Energy-Saving Tips for Users at Home

Conclusion: Moving Toward a Sustainable Streaming Future

As video streaming continues to grow, so does its impact on global energy consumption. On World Energy Saving Day 2024, it’s important to remember that while individual actions matter, sustainable streaming will ultimately be achieved through collaboration between technology providers, content distributors, and viewers.

Broadpeak remains committed to driving innovation in sustainable streaming, optimizing delivery networks, and providing solutions that minimize energy consumption without compromising the quality of our favorite shows, movies, and live events.

Let’s work together for a greener future in entertainment!

[1] The TM Forum Catalyst Projects are collaborative innovation initiatives that bring together communication service providers (CSPs), technology suppliers, and industry players to co-create solutions for telecom and digital challenges. These projects focus on rapid innovation, testing new ideas, and promoting industry standards.

Author: Elodie Levrel

elodie levrel

As the Corporate Marketing and Communication Director for Broadpeak, Elodie Levrel leads the company’s global communications and marketing strategy with the objective to protect and strengthen its brand and reputation.


Elodie has more than 15 years of experience in the communication, marketing and event management fields, including more than 10 years in the video industry. Prior to joining Broadpeak, she was the Communication and Business Development Manager at Poulain & Fils and the International Communication and Event Manager for Université Européenne de Bretagne.


Elodie holds a master’s degree in international event management from the Ecole de Management de Normandie and the University of Brighton.

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