Comcast Cable said at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2022 Monday that it plans to double its network energy efficiency by 2030, cutting the electricity per consumed terabyte of data in half.

“We’re on the path to a greener internet,” Comcast Cable president of Technology, Product, Experience Charlie Herrin said in a statement. “The smart technologies powering our new network architecture are transforming how data is delivered, providing the industry’s best combination of speed, coverage, and control — all more sustainably.”

Comcast has been investing in a nationwide network transformation to virtual, cloud-based technologies that offer faster broadband speeds, greater reliability, and improved energy efficiency. The new virtualized platform includes more centralized locations for headends, hubs, and data centers that are more efficient than previous technologies, requiring less hardware, less space and less energy per byte.

Comcast has set a goal to be carbon neutral by 2035 for Scope 1 and 2 emissions, or the direct and indirect emissions it owns and controls, across its global operations. With purchased electricity accounting for the majority of its emissions, Comcast is investing in clean, renewable energy to power its network and operations, as well as shifting to newer, more energy-efficient technologies and facilities to deliver more data with less energy per byte.

To underscore the company’s commitment to the environment, Comcast has purchased and gifted renewable energy certificates to power Cable-Tec Expo with 100% clean energy.

“Achieving our carbon neutral goal will require our business to work harder and smarter, and that goes for the network itself,” Herrin added. “We’re proud to make network energy efficiency a priority among our peers and suppliers, and to demonstrate the role our industry has in creating a more sustainable future.” ■ 

T-Mobile has topped Green America's sustainability scorecard for the third year in a row.

The nonprofit released its wireless scorecard on clean energy use and reduction of greenhouse gasses, but it was focusing more on the bottom than the top, leading with the news that Verizon was at the bottom of the list.

T-Mobile leads due to its plan to reach 100% renewables by 2021, while Verizon trails due to what Green America said is only an estimated 3-5% renewables, though it has announced a new wind energy project that should boost that number.

Sprint was in second place given its goal of 100% clean energy by 2025 and its first project to provide 30% renewables. But given the merger of the number one and two wireless carriers — at least in terms of renewables — T-Mobile has signaled it will issue a new joint plan for 100% renewables.

AT&T gets credit for acquiring over 1.5 gigawatts of renewables since 2018, or what Green America said is an estimated quarter of its total use. But it got demerits for "the only telecom without a public target or timeline on clean energy."

"Verizon is supporting the transition to a greener grid by making substantial investments in renewable energy. We have set an ambitious goal to source or generate renewable energy equivalent to 50% of our total annual electricity consumption by 2025 and working toward achieving this goal by developing green energy at our own operations and by facilitating the development of renewable energy through long-term power purchase agreements," said the company in response to the scorecard. "Verizon is also actively working to improve the energy efficiency of our operations, including our global network, with the goal to be carbon neutral in our operations (Scope 1 and 2) by 2035 and will be announcing an approved science-based target no later than September 2021.

"Today we announced that we've joined The Climate Pledge - the commitment co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism to meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early - which gives us another opportunity to work together with like-minded organizations to expedite our combined efforts." 

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers it teaming up with Villanova University’s RISE (Resilient Innovation through Sustainable Engineering) Forum to develop an energy assessment tool focused on cable headend and hub facilities.

The project ties into the SCTE/ISBE’s Energy 2020 Program, which has set goals to  achieve double-digit reductions in energy cost and consumption by the end of the decade.

RELATED: SCTE, MSOs Outline ‘Energy 2020’ Goals

While the industry has made progress in reducing power consumption in data center facilities, cable’s edge facilities traditionally have been in an ‘always-on’ state regardless of demand. This latest project will focus on those energy-eating facilities, they said,

“Between 73% and 83% of cable’s overall energy consumption is by hubs, headends and the access network power supplies, powering the active equipment in the HFC network,” said Chris Bastian, senior vice president and CTO of SCTE/ISBE, in a statement. “The Villanova RISE Forum will complement other efforts to tackle that challenge, including the development of standards that are enabling cable system operators to identify consumption patterns more effectively.”

SCTE announced in May that was joining Villanova’s RISE Forum and collaborating with faculty and graduate students. The team overseeing this project plans to present preliminary findings to representatives from the cable industry at the Energy 2020/EMS Plenary on October 18, to be hosted by CableLabs in Colorado.

Comcast said it has completed the installation of a rooftop-mounted solar array at a facility in Oakland that will generate 251 kilowatts of power, enabling the location to reduce its dependency on the electrical grid by 78%.

The installation, part of a multi-year series of sustainability initiatives being implemented by the operator in California, is helping to power Comcast’s will Oakland Field Fulfillment Office (FFO). Comcast said it teamed with The Solar Company on the installation.

Comcast marked the by hosting an event at the facility, at 8470 Pardee Drive, that included special guests such as Annie Campbell Washington, Vice Mayor, City of Oakland; and Dr. Daniel M. Kammen, Director of Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL), University of California, Berkeley. Comcast said it also made a donation to the Rising Sun Energy Center Youth Program.

Comcast noted that local efforts such as this tie into nationwide sustainability initiatives as well as Energy 2020, a program led by the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers and industry partners that has identified targets that include a 20% reduction of power consumption on a unit basis, a 25% reduction in energy costs on a unit basis, a 10% reduction of grid dependency and an optimization of technical facility and data center footprints by 20%. 

“Our industry is growing rapidly and scaling bandwidth requires more efficient energy consumption to sustain the massive growth trend,” John Schanz, executive vice president and chief network officer of Comcast and co-chair of Energy 2020, said in a statement.  “Technology, innovation and talent are at the core of everything Comcast does and generating clean energy on site at our Oakland facility is an example of  how we’re using smart technology to help us grow our business.”

Among its other energy-saving focused activities, Comcast  is also installing smart controls in its data centers to manage cooling and energy needs to prevent peak electricity loads or spikes in demand.  Comcast said last year it installed its first fuel cell system to help power a facility in Berlin, Conn., and that it has several other sites in design review. 

If there’s one thing that stands out as a technology darling for the summer of 2014, it’s the bombardment of gadgetry designed to keep the stuff in the digital garden charged and ready.

Two such things showed up on the doorstep last week as evidence, amongst tons of other affordable (meaning sub-$100) options.

One: The Mophie “Juice Pack,” which clamps onto your phone, acting as both a protective case and a power source. Charge the bottom part of the two-piece case and slide it onto the phone. When the phone gets low on juice, push the button on the back of the case to pop it into charging mode. Voila! Suddenly the iPhone 5 works all day and into the evening.

The second: A fold-up solar panel, made by Anker, and sent over for evaluation by the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers, presumably to point out what can happen as the industry continues to focus its attention on sustainable energy.

How it works: Unfold it. Find a wide, sunny place. (It’s a lengthy bugger, unfolding to about yardstick length.) Plug your gadget into one of two USB ports; watch it charge.

Obviously, a sunny day matters with this one, and the documentation contains all kinds of near apologies for the weather. (Sorry, Seattle!)

The Anker panel folds up to about the size of a large Kindle. It doesn’t hold a charge, it just dispenses energy to gadgets as available by the sun.

Advancements in battery life aren’t new — and the volume of R&D around the category continues to run at a sprint pace. It’s because of all of our stuff, of course, that needs and drains energy. More drain if you’re using your phone as a wireless access point, or if you forget to turn off the Bluetooth transmitter.

(Or, in my case, if you plugged your stuff into an unprotected outlet in another country, promptly frying the charger and elbowing the battery into fast drain.)

My strong preference, between the case/charger and the solar panel, is the panel. It’s sunny 333 days per year in Colorado, and the charging mechanism from the sun seems to go much faster than when plugged into the wall.

Of course, always an option is to plug the charging case into the solar panel, thus using the sun to fill up the battery.

In mulling the “power summer” that is 2014, one thing seems pretty clear: The industry could assuage the embarrassingly huge and widely observed electricity draw of things like set-top boxes by including some form of solar alternative. Most people want to make a difference, and doing the “right thing” by plugging into the sun seems a pretty easy way to deliver a “feel good” experience.

On the other hand, there’s not much left of summer. Unplugging is also an option.

Stumped by gibberish? Visit Leslie Ellis atwww.translation-please.com or multichannel.com/blog.