Modelling energy efficiency in distributed home environments

Abstract

In this paper, we present a distributed approach for saving energy by sharing computing load in home networks. In our approach, possibly thousands of home computers may cooperate and send each other tasks which include services and applications running on a 24/7 basis. By concentrating as many tasks as possible on a small number of computers, idle computers may go asleep and thus consume almost no energy. We present the general architecture of our approach and analyse several 24/7 applications by modelling the potential energy consumption with and without application sharing, as well as the aspect of availability.