In the U.S. alone, demand for electricity is forecast to grow 40% over the next two decades.
By 2030, new electronic gadgets will triple energy consumption to 1,700 terawatt hours, the equivalent of today's home electricity consumption of the U.S. and Japan combined.
The computers, mobile phones, and TVs that define modern life consume ever growing amounts of energy--each new generation of device hungrier than the last.
Around 200 new nuclear power plants would be needed to power the home electronics expected by 2030, when the global electric bill to power them will rise to $200 billion a year.
The cost to business is even higher: power consumed by the typical corporate data center is growing by 20% per year.
Power Factor Correction, or PFC, is a technology that helps solve the inherent inefficiencies in today’s electronics
PFC can prevent more than 50% of the energy that is wasted in the transmission of energy from the source to the product, principally by inefficient copper wires.
PFC uses semiconductor brainpower to regulate and harmonize the flow of electrical current.
Utilizing PFC technology in an electronic that ordinarily consumes 10 watts of electricity can reduce its energy consumption to 5 watts or less.
PFC is cost-neutral to deploy but achieves great energy savings.
Although consumer electronics consumption is growing rapidly, it has the least amount of policies in place to control energy efficiency.
Electronic gadgets already account for about 15% of household electric consumption.
In 2008, the world spent $80 billion on electricity to power household electronics.
Most of the increase in consumer electronics will be in developing countries, where economic growth is fastest and ownership rates of gadgets is the lowest.
This proliferation in use will jeopardize efforts to increase energy security and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Existing technologies could slash gadgets' energy consumption by more than 30% at no cost or by more than 50% at a small cost.
Total greenhouse gas emissions from households' electronic gadgets could be held stable at around 500 million tons of CO2 per year through the use of energy efficient technologies.
New policies which internalize a carbon price will generally help to make energy efficiency more cost-effective.
Many policy and governmental program such as Energy Star in the U.S. are already missing the opportunity to deliver 20 to 50% more energy savings.
Electronic devices are the most globally traded of all household appliances; therefore international co-operation in the development of energy efficiency policies is essential.
International cooperation can create a market driver to innovate and apply energy efficiencient technologies that can meet the robust demand for consumer electronics.
We need the coordinated leadership of governments around the world to mandate early adoption of existing energy efficiency technology and incentives to expand adoption
Source: smart-electronics.org
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