On Thin-Clients and the Cloud; Can Smartphones and Tablets Really Reduce Electricity Consumption?

Cloud computing suggests that we can move many computational and data storage services from the desktop onto the network. New thin clients provide an excellent user interface for cloud services and also reduce both manufacturing electricity and lifetime electricity use by an order of magnitude. But do they really reduce overall electricity consumption? In this paper we examine how the total electricity consumption due to consumer computing devices is evolving. We attempt to estimate its growth in terms of global electricity consumption and determine longer term trends due to the rapid growth in thin-clients and the broad adoption of cloud computing.