Up to 10% of electricity from grid could be instantly nixed
Orange has released details of its plan to cope with the looming energy crisis threatens Europe with rationing and blackouts. There are instant power savings that can be made without hurting productivity and 10% of Orange’s electricity consumption can be cut right away, according to CEO Christel Heydemann. “Cutting consumption at several thousand technical sites for one hour will reduce our instantaneous power requirements by up to 10%, without impacting the service offered to users,” said Heydemann.
The ‘instant cuts’ will be achieved during peak consumption hours. Switching to batteries for several thousand fixed network installations will avoid drawing up to 20 MW off the electricity grid. This is the consumption of a medium-sized city with 40,000 inhabitants. These energy efficiency measures will have no negative impact on users, Orange said.
Other measures include offices, whose temperature is now set at 19°C. On days when there are few visitors, Orange may close some quieter work spaces save on electricity and heating. From September 1, 2022, window lighting at all Orange stores in France has been switched off 30 minutes after closing.
During peak consumption, SMS texts will be sent to Orange employees and customers to raise awareness of environmentally-friendly actions, like switching off their boxes when not in use, switching to Wi-Fi at home and enabling standby mode for their Livebox and TV set-top box. Extended standby mode on the Livebox 6 can reduce energy consumption by 95%.
A signatory of the Ecowatt charter, Orange will display an electricity status report on the Orange TV home page, allowing every TV viewer to see the amount of electricity available in France. Orange teams will also offer a range of connected services and offers to customers to help reduce their energy consumption.
“We share the French government’s concerns and have developed a concrete plan to support the national energy saving initiative,” said Heydemann, “we must work together to avoid load shedding measures this winter.”
All the technology industry’s heaviest power users are stockpiling diesel. In the data centre industry, global giants like Equinix and Digital Realty have increased their diesel reserves in preparation for potential grid and fuel supply issues, reported Paul Lipscombe in DataCenter Dynamics. Instead of filling its tanks to 60% capacity they will top them up to 90% across many sites. One of the UK’s largest equipment rental groups is also stockpiling extra diesel generators in anticipation of high demand going into winter, said the report.
BT-EE recently told the FT that it was not currently seeking more backup power for the winter, but was assessing which of its non-critical hardware could be switched off.
Mobile operators and tower companies such as Deutsche Telekom, Vantage Towers and Vodafone are to step up their quest for renewable power sources. Orange Poland runs now gets half its power from a wind farm. Telcos are examining how to trim the waste.