IT Energy Efficiency
The era of competition for cheaper maintenance costs is expected in the electronics and IT markets, similar to the auto market.
“The electronics industry has not paid much attention to maintenance costs compared to the auto industry,” said Lee Jong-geun, researcher at LG Economic Research Institute, in his report released on Nov. 23. Lee explained, “However, with heated competition for specifications in major product lines such as smartphones and TVs, there is a growing interest for maintenance costs (electricity, charging stress) in the electronics and IT markets.”
As the technical specifications of new IT products, including display resolutions, increase, products use more energy. With diminishing marginal utility and the appearance of various kinds of Internet of Things (IoT) products like wearable devices, the energy efficiency of electronics products is becoming more important.
Therefore, electronics makers are reportedly finding ways to minimize the amount of power needed for electronic products.
First, companies are lowering specs or providing updates for software every week to reduce energy consumption. Second, they are actively pushing electronics products to share the charging stress with sub-devices like wearables.
Finally, technologies for energy harvesting, which use heat or vibrations occurring in daily life, are currently being revived.
Lee remarked, “The issue of energy consumption for electronics goods could become a trigger that determines the success or failure of products themselves, rather than one of the elements in the products.” He added, “As plasma display panels disappeared in the market due to low energy efficiency, there could be another case of PDPs in the electronics and IT markets, if the energy consumption and operating cost is high.” Lee concluded by saying, “As more wearable devices, IoT products, and UHD products are available in the market, an innovation of electricity consumption is expected to have a greater impact on the electronics and IT markets.”