Netflix sparks energy crisis fears as ‘surging demand’ for online video uses more electricity than a nuclear power plant
BINGE-WATCHING your fave shows on Netflix could drain Britain of all its electricity.
That’s according to a shock new study, which hints that our love of online video could spark a nationwide energy crisis.
Surging demand for web video streaming means Britain’s web habits chomp through more electricity in a year than that generated by a nuclear power plant, scientists found.
Watching a single feature-length film online uses up the same power needed to make a whopping 60 cups of tea.
Researchers are calling for urgent action as a huge growth in streaming threatens to cripple Britain’s power grid.
It could intensify the problem of meeting the nation’s future peak winter electricity demands, they said.
“A transition in how people watch TV appears to be underway,” said Dr Mike Hazas, a researcher at Lancaster University.
“Urgent consideration is needed of the energy implications if a much greater proportion of viewing takes place via the Internet.”
Online video is the most energy-intensive use of the internet.
As well as the power used by your telly or phone, the services burn through power by transferring huge lumps of data great distances.
A video clip uploaded to Facebook from the UK, for instance, travels 5,000 miles to data centres in Prineville, Oregon, and is then sent all the way back every time a new person watches it.
Dr Hazas and his team investigated how how video streaming affects the UK’s power consumption.
They tracked the home web habits of people including students, adult workers, the elderly and teenagers. All streamed video online in some capacity.
In 2011 UK households consumed an average of 17 gigabytes (GB) of broadband data each month. By 2016 this had risen to 132 GB.
With sites like Netflix soon rolling out Ultra HD services, this number will only rise in future, researchers warned.
YouTube ploughed through the most data, accounting for almost 50% of demand.
Many families watched different streaming services in separate rooms, boosting energy consumption.
UK policy may have to change to accommodate the amount of energy online video uses, researchers warned.
“Government policies in many countries aim not merely to extend Internet access to households and citizens who do not already have it, but crucially to make existing connections faster and faster,” Dr Hazas said.
“By encouraging extra data traffic, such policies have implications for electricity demand and carbon emissions. But they make little, if any, consideration of this.”
Netflix often touts strong message on climate change, most recently in its documentary series Our Planet, narrated by legendary naturalist Sir David Attenborough.
The firm says it’s important that its data centre providers commit to “100% clean energy”, which it currently achieves by buying renewable energy credits.
Netflix declined to comment on the study.
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In other energy news, wind farms could be paid to stop producing energy to avoid swamping the power grid.
Scientists claimed last month that flying cars could soon be a reality and might even help to save the planet.
A machine algorithm similar to those used by Netflix can predict death or heart attacks with 90% accuracy, a recent study found.
Do you think streaming sites are doing enough to protect the planet? Let us know in the comments!
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