EcoDesign 2023/826: IoT cuts smart home gateway energy use by 50%

To unlock these benefits, efficiency needs to be improved across the entire energy supply chain, from production to final consumption, covering all member states and industries as well as the public sector.

The EcoDesign 2023/826 regulation is one of the many EU initiatives being introduced to reduce energy consumption in community member states. It mandates new, reduced standby and off-mode power consumption limits for a broad range of home and office electronic devices and equipment sold in the EU.

However, EcoDesign 2023/826 could mean that Internet Service Providers (ISP) and gateway manufacturers are caught between a rock and a hard place. How can they reduce the energy consumption of power-hungry home Wi-Fi gateways? How is it possible to avoid interruptions on critical smart home applications, such as security cameras, during gateway standby? And how can you wake up a sleeping gateway without user intervention? As with so many modern-life problems, the solution can be found in the Internet of Things (IoT).

What EU EcoDesign 2023/826 means

EcoDesign 2023/826 will limit electronic equipment’s off-mode and standby power consumption. It is being introduced in two phases. Phase one comes into effect 9^th May 2025, setting the first set of limitations. Phase two, after which all the planned regulations are in force, kicks-in two years later and will reduce power consumption further. Different device and equipment types have different limitations.

Generally, electronic equipment’s off-mode power consumption will be capped to a maximum of 0.50 Watts (W) in Phase one and further reduced to 0.30W in Phase two. The off-mode power consumption limits apply when equipment provides only a reactivation function, or a reactivation function and an indication of a reactivation-enabled function. For devices that provide an information or status display in standby mode, the power consumption must not exceed 0.80W.

EcoDesign 2023/826 also sets specific power consumption limitations for networked devices in standby mode, to a maximum of 2.00W. This applies when equipment is in standby mode while also connected to the network.

The power consumption of high network availability (HiNA) equipment, such as home customer premises equipment (CPE), Wi-Fi gateways, and broadband routers, cannot exceed 8.00W in the networked standby mode during Phase one, and eventually 7.00W in Phase two.

How much gateway energy could EcoDesign save?

HiNA equipment such as home CPE, Wi-Fi gateways, and broadband routers are the backbone of a connected home. To ensure users and smart home applications like security cameras, thermostats, or leak detectors have an active data connection to the Internet and Cloud when needed, they are always on. These gateways draw full power even when there is no activity in the home network, like at night or when the users are away on vacation. Modern gateways are equipped with power-hungry, high-throughput Wi-Fi radios, that are constantly consuming 10-25W of energy thus increasing energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and electricity costs.

There are an estimated 180 million residential broadband connections in the EU. Let’s assume that there is a Wi-Fi-enabled broadband router in each household consuming an average of 15W per day. This amounts to a total energy consumption of 24TWh per year.

Given the average CO2 intensity of electricity production in the EU is estimated at 210gCO2e/kWh (2023), the total annual CO2 emissions generated by the 180 million CPEs would be approximately five million metric tons – equivalent to the emissions from 40 billion km of car traffic (125gCO2e/km). The total cost of the electricity drawn by the home gateways is estimated at €6.85 billion per year (based on an EU average electricity price of 0.289 €/kWh).

When the EcoDesign regulation comes into full effect in 2027, each gateway will continue to consume an average of 15W during active operation. Let’s assume for simplicity they are active for 12 hours a day. During the other 12 hours of inactivity, the gateways would be forced into the 7W EcoDesign standby mode. This would reduce the annual gateway energy consumption by up to 27%, equating to a saving of 6.3TWh of energy, 1.3 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, and €1.8 billion in annual electricity costs.

EcoDesign gateway challenges

On most smart home end-devices and household equipment such as smart TVs, washing machines, coffee makers, and others, low-power standby mode has been a common functionality for decades. So, implementing EcoDesign reductions on them should be straightforward. However, standby mode has hardly ever been implemented on Wi-Fi gateways and broadband routers. The reason is simple – during gateway standby, there would be no network connectivity in the home. Critical smart home applications such as security cameras, thermostats, and leak detectors would be disconnected and non-operational during gateway standby time, and preventing any user activities that require connectivity such as surfing the Internet.

Technically, gateways can be forced into standby mode easily. However, waking them up in a sophisticated and automated way without user intervention – for example, when a leak detector, security camera, or washing machine needs connectivity – is a complex product development challenge for ISPs and gateway manufacturers.

Could smart home devices wake up the gateway?

But what if the dozens of smart devices in your home could autonomously and automatically signal the gateway to enter sleep mode when it is not needed and switch it back on when they need Internet connectivity? This might sound like a techy future prediction, but new, rapidly evolving IoT technologies such as Thread and Matter could help to make it a common practice very, very soon.

Silicon Labs has developed a patented IoT solution for automating gateway power management to reduce energy consumption without compromising smart home connectivity due to a sleeping gateway. In its proof-of-concept system, smart home devices can signal the gateway over Thread and Matter wireless IoT protocols to go to sleep when no connectivity is needed and wake it up when Internet or Cloud connectivity is required. For instance, if a motion sensor detects movement or if the homeowner opens a smart lock, these devices can seamlessly wake up the gateway to resume full connectivity.

As opposed to the 7W gateway standby power mandated by the EU EcoDesign, Silicon Labs’ low-power wireless IoT microcontrollers such as MG24 enable the gateway to enter a sleep mode with a power consumption of just 0.3W during inactive periods.

How does this radical power consumption reduction impact the numbers on the EU level?

The IoT-based gateway power management solution could reduce the annual energy consumption by 49%, equating to nearly 12TWh of energy savings, 2.4 million metric tons of CO2 emission reduction, and €3.5 billion in electricity cost savings across the 180 million home gateways yearly. In conclusion, the IoT-based solution could save ISPs and the community twice as much as the EcoDesign regulation mandates while operating seamlessly for the home users and keeping smart home applications connected and operational.

Figure 1: an illustration of the scale of potential savings in some of the largest cities in the EU, highlighting the transformative potential of energy-efficient technologies to reduce operational costs and carbon footprints at scale

Enhanced user experience and reduced CO2 emissions

The path to EU EcoDesign compliance needn’t be difficult for ISPs and gateway manufacturers. The automated IoT gateway power management solution pioneered by Silicon Labs allows them to meet and even exceed the EU’s EcoDesign requirements with confidence – without sacrificing consumer convenience and smart home safety. Moreover, transforming the existing Wi-Fi home gateways to multiprotocol IoT gateways accelerates smart home innovation and the rollout of new value-added services for ISPs and gateway manufacturers.

With intelligent, energy-efficient gateways, European smart home users can enjoy a seamless experience while also saving money and saving the planet.

Box out:

Service Provider Perspective

For a fleet of 1 million gateways:

• Energy savings per night: 176,750kWh per night per million gateways
• Energy cost savings per night: assuming an average electricity price of €0.25 per kWh, the cost saving will be an aggregate of €44,000 for million gateways per night
• Annual energy cost savings: this represents over €16 million in annual energy cost savings for service providers, while also contributing to significant reductions in carbon emissions