![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
listening to over-the-air radio vs internet streaming radio - energy use
Saturday, July 27th, 2024 02:41 pmI wondered about that yesterday, as I switched from listening to a local radio station via the Audials streaming app on my phone, to my (over-the-air/OTA) portable radio.
Some parts of that, I could measure myself with my "Kill-a-watt" meter - the energy usage of the radio, and of the external computer speakers that I often connect my phone to. Measuring the energy usage of the phone itself is harder due to its built-in battery. I could check how much it uses while charging, but that wouldn't tell me how much extra it uses when streaming music vs being in stand-by mode.
The broadcast side can also be considered. With over-the-air transmitters, the energy required for the broadcast is the same regardless of how many people tune in to listen. With streaming, I imagine the energy usage increases depending on the number of devices that connect to the stream. If a station transmits both ways at the same time as many do, choosing to connect to the stream won't reduce the power used by the OTA broadcast.
There are many variables and things to be considered. But I did a web search and was pleasantly surprised to get several on-topic pages in the results. Of course, I don't have time to read them all, but it looks interesting.
BBC Radio Services: How much energy is used to deliver and listen to radio?
In that article, I also found this surprising:
The total energy required to prepare, distribute and consume BBC radio in our 2018 baseline was estimated to be 325 GWh, equivalent to 0.1% of UK electricity use that year.
0.1% is a small number, but still more than I'd have expected to be used just by the BBC radio services.
StackExchange: What is the energy efficiency between FM radio tower broadcasting over an area vs point to point streaming via Internet?
Techsurvey 2023 Shows Gap Between OTA And Streaming Listening Is Shrinking
Some parts of that, I could measure myself with my "Kill-a-watt" meter - the energy usage of the radio, and of the external computer speakers that I often connect my phone to. Measuring the energy usage of the phone itself is harder due to its built-in battery. I could check how much it uses while charging, but that wouldn't tell me how much extra it uses when streaming music vs being in stand-by mode.
The broadcast side can also be considered. With over-the-air transmitters, the energy required for the broadcast is the same regardless of how many people tune in to listen. With streaming, I imagine the energy usage increases depending on the number of devices that connect to the stream. If a station transmits both ways at the same time as many do, choosing to connect to the stream won't reduce the power used by the OTA broadcast.
There are many variables and things to be considered. But I did a web search and was pleasantly surprised to get several on-topic pages in the results. Of course, I don't have time to read them all, but it looks interesting.
BBC Radio Services: How much energy is used to deliver and listen to radio?
...we explored four ‘what if…?’ scenarios over 20 years, from 2018 to 2037, which were:
Business as Usual - All platforms retained
Digital Only - Switching off AM and FM from 2030
DAB/IP Only - Switching off AM, FM and DTV radio from 2030
IP Only - Switching off AM, FM, DAB and DTV radio from 2030
All switch-off scenarios showed energy-saving potential compared to ‘Business as Usual’. Out of the scenarios modelled, the ‘DAB/IP Only’ case led to the largest energy reduction of 599 GWh, which was almost twice as much as the second-largest saving from ‘IP Only’ at 301 GWh. For the ‘Digital Only’ scenario, we estimated the smallest reduction of 176 GWh compared to ‘Business as Usual’. However, our results were sensitive to which devices people migrated to after switch-off. For example, a greater uptake in listening via television sets reduced the energy-saving potential in some scenarios.
Our most notable finding, demonstrated in both the baseline and scenario results, was that the biggest factor driving energy use was the standby power of radio sets and smart speakers - more so than the power of devices when they are turned on. Therefore, as a potential intervention, we simulated the removal of this standby energy across all our scenarios from 2021. In practice, this would mean people unplugging devices from their power source when not in use.
By testing this, we found an average energy saving of 38% across our scenarios, which was unprecedentedly large.
In that article, I also found this surprising:
The total energy required to prepare, distribute and consume BBC radio in our 2018 baseline was estimated to be 325 GWh, equivalent to 0.1% of UK electricity use that year.
0.1% is a small number, but still more than I'd have expected to be used just by the BBC radio services.
StackExchange: What is the energy efficiency between FM radio tower broadcasting over an area vs point to point streaming via Internet?
Techsurvey 2023 Shows Gap Between OTA And Streaming Listening Is Shrinking