ATIS Standards for Telecommunications Energy Efficiency Ratio
A New York Times article, Landlords Double as Energy Brokers – North Jersey Data Center Industry Blurs Utility Real Estate Boundary, notes that [in data centers] “As computing power has soared, so has the need for power, turning that relationship on its head: electrical capacity is often the central element of lease agreements, and space is secondary.”
James Glantz writes in an earlier article in the New York Times, Power, Pollution and the Internet, “Most data centers, by design, consume vast amounts of energy in an incongruously wasteful manner, interviews and documents show. Online companies typically run their facilities at maximum capacity around the clock, whatever the demand. As a result, data centers can waste 90 percent or more of the electricity they pull off the grid, The Times found.”
The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) announced that it has published three standards used to determine telecommunication equipment’s energy efficiency. The standards introduce the Telecommunications Energy Efficiency Ratio or TEER as a measure of network-element efficiency. The standards provide a comprehensive methodology for measuring and reporting energy consumption, and uniformly quantify a network component’s ratio of “work performed” to energy consumed.
The efficiency standards are specific to equipment type, network location and classification. Normalizing these ratings by functionality enables “apples-to-apples” equipment comparison. This systemized assessment results in repeatable and comparable energy consumption measurement.
- ATIS-0600015.2018, Energy Efficiency for Telecommunication Equipment: Methodology for Measurement and Reporting – General Requirements provides the methodology for determining telecommunications energy efficiency.
- ATIS-0600015.01.2021, Energy Efficiency for Telecommunication Equipment: Methodology for Measurement and Reporting — Server Requirements defines how to measure the Telecommunications Energy Efficiency Ratio (TEER) of a server or server blade and defines how equipment vendors shall respond to a TEER request.
- ATIS-0600015.02.2016, Energy Efficiency for Telecommunication Equipment: Methodology for Measurement and Reporting – Transport Requirements. Energy Efficiency for Telecommunication Equipment: Methodology for Measurement and Reporting – Transport Requirements specifies the definition of Transport products and systems as well as a methodology to calculate the Telecommunication Energy Efficiency Ratio (TEER) of a transport system or network configuration. The standard also provides requirements for how equipment vendors shall respond to a TEER request.
