(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
Digitalisation – Topics - IEA
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20200623083645/https://www.iea.org/topics/digitalisation
Digitalisation

Making energy systems more connected, efficient, resilient and sustainable


Introduction

Stunning advances in data, analytics and connectivity are enabling a range of new digital applications such as smart appliances, shared mobility, and 3D printing. Digitalised energy systems in the future may be able to identify who needs energy and deliver it at the right time, in the right place and at the lowest cost.

Digitalisation is already improving the safety, productivity, accessibility and sustainability of energy systems. But digitalisation is also raising new security and privacy risks. It is also changing markets, businesses and employment. New business models are emerging, while some century-old models may be on their way out.

Policy makers, business executives and other stakeholders increasingly face new and complex decisions, often with incomplete or imperfect information. Adding to this challenge is the extremely dynamic nature of energy systems, which are often built on large, long-lived physical infrastructure and assets.

Global trends in internet traffic, data centre workloads and data centre energy use, 2010-2019

Openexpand

Huge strides in energy efficiency have helped to limit electricity demand growth from data centres and transmission networks

Global internet traffic surged by almost 40% between February and mid-April 2020, driven by growth in video streaming, video conferencing, online gaming, and social networking. This growth comes on top of rising demand for digital services over the past decade: since 2010, the number of internet users worldwide has doubled while global internet traffic has grown 12-fold. However, rapid improvements in energy efficiency have helped to limit energy demand growth from data centres and data transmission networks, which each accounted for around 1% of global electricity use in 2019. Strong government and industry efforts on energy efficiency, renewables procurement, and RD&D; are necessary to limit growth in energy demand and emissions over the next decade.