Paper on An Assessment of Software Lifecycle Energy
Abstract—Software energy assessment is important for
reducing environmental impact of modern information
technologies (IT). While software does not consume energy, for
any computing hardware the energy cost of processing strongly
depends on control defined by software. This paper analyzes the
total energy consumption associated with software production,
delivery and use and assesses their contribution to green-house
gas emissions. The results reveal that the energy consumed at the
production stage dominates the total lifecycle energy as software
size grows. However, if software is largely used, most of the
lifecycle energy is consumed at the use stage. For software as big
as Linux 3.2 kernel, the total lifecycle energy exceeds 51 Giga
Watt-hours i.e. equivalent of 31kilotons of CO2 emission.
Reducing this environmental impact requires energy–conscious
software development and management. This paper is not
intended as a comprehensive analysis rather as a starting point
for research toward green software development.
