The Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS-JU) project EXIGENCE, launched in January 2024, is on a mission to revolutionise the sustainability of ICT. By adopting an end-to-end approach, EXIGENCE aims to reduce the energy consumption and carbon footprint across multiple domains—from cloud providers and mobile networks to fixed networks and user terminals. This holistic approach offers valuable insights to end-users and service providers, enabling them to optimise energy and carbon use in real-time through intelligent orchestration.
Let us dive into the different work packages (WPs) of the EXIGENCE project to see what is being done to achieve these ambitious sustainability goals. From laying the foundation for energy metrics to implementing green network orchestration, each work package plays a crucial role in building a smarter, more sustainable ICT future.
WP1: Requirements and Architecture – Laying the Groundwork
The first year of EXIGENCE was crucial for the success of this work package, as its primary objective was to lay the foundation by providing key inputs, such as requirements and functional architecture, to the more implementation-focused work packages, WP2 and WP3.
The year began with an extensive state-of-the-art analysis covering metrics, measurements, attribution, aggregation, optimisation, orchestration, and energy-related architectures, all aimed at reducing carbon impact and energy consumption. This review explored key standardisation bodies (e.g., 3GPP, IETF, ITU-T, and ETSI), industry groups (NGNM, Greening of Streaming), and academic research papers, ultimately identifying around ninety relevant documents. These were organised and summarised based on their focus areas, including metrics, measurement techniques, attribution, and optimisation strategies. Given its comprehensive nature and its novel approach to end-to-end energy and carbon management in ICT, the findings were made publicly available as the EXIGENCE Green ICT DIGEST (see WP4).
Task 1.1: Future Energy Ecosystem, analysed future energy ecosystems in the context of the use cases proposed by Task 1.2. This research identified key stakeholders, defined their roles, and assessed the interdependencies between energy and financial factors. It also examined the value impacts of the proposed use cases on each stakeholder, enabling a more refined understanding of opportunities, challenges, and risks. The results of this analysis will soon be published in Deliverable D1.1: Future Energy Ecosystem, with further work next year focusing on monitoring the regulatory landscape for green ICT.
Task 1.2: Requirements and Scenarios, began by identifying fourteen use cases that illustrate EXIGENCE’s end-to-end approach to energy and carbon management. These use cases were then refined, with some being submitted to 3GPP SA1 for their Release 20 study on “Energy Efficiency as Service Criteria” (3GPP TR 22.883). The use cases were clustered into four categories:
(1) Media Streaming, (2) Green Batch Scheduling, (3) Green Real Time Scheduling, and (4) Energy Efficiency Services.
After two rounds of prioritisation, a subset of use cases was selected for deeper exploration within the project:
- UC 1: Media Streaming Carbon Footprint Transparency
- UC 2: Digital Sobriety
- UC 4: Behavioral Incentive for Digital Sobriety
- UC 9: Physical Security
- UC 10: Carbon-Aware AI Service Provisioning and Control
- UC 14: Green Network Orchestration in the Edge
Work also began on consolidating the requirements for these use cases, which will inform the next stages of the project. The results of this task will soon be released in Deliverable D1.2: Use Cases and Requirements, with final consolidation expected early next year.
Task 1.3: Functional Architecture, focused on developing a high-level, inter-domain architecture to monitor and manage end-to-end energy consumption and carbon footprint across ICT systems. This draft architecture, which will be finalised by month 27 of the project, laid the groundwork for WP2 and WP3, outlining the guidelines for measurement, optimisation, and actuation mechanisms required to achieve the project’s goals. The EXIGENCE Agent also began to take shape during this phase. This new element interacts with domain components (e.g., cloud service providers, mobile network architectures) to measure energy consumption and implement optimisations. It also communicates with EXIGENCE Agents in other domains, enabling the aggregation of data for multi-domain energy management. This architectural framework sets the stage for EXIGENCE’s holistic approach to sustainable ICT. The results from Task 1.3 will be published in Deliverable D1.3: Draft Functional Architecture, with further development expected next year. This will include close collaboration with WP2 (Task 2.3) and WP3 (Task 3.1) to refine the architecture and define the protocols and mechanisms necessary for its implementation.
WP2: Energy Metering – Measuring Sustainability
The activities within WP2 of the EXIGENCE project are focused on developing methods for measuring sustainability at the service level across various domains. This work serves two primary purposes: (1) enabling the evaluation of systems and (2) providing valuable insights for optimisation efforts. In the first year of the project, all three tasks within WP2 were initiated.
Since metrics are considered as fundamental for further development, task T2.1: Metrics for End-to-End Energy Consumption and Efficiency Metering, has been the first activity that has started within WP2. Although no deliverables have been issued within the first year, milestone MS2.1 Draft metrics for energy consumptions and energy efficiency metering developed has been reached and an internal report on the draft metrics related to energy consumption, energy efficiency and carbon footprint has been issued. Based on this report, a blog post has been published as well. Work on metrics considers the requirements of use cases defined in WP1, and state-of-the-art in metrics specifically related to ICT systems (provided by EXIGENCE “Green ICT DIGEST“ repository, also as an outcome of WP1 activities). Although EXIGENCE objectives require certain specific metrics, no new metrics are being invented in WP2, but rather existing metrics are adapted to better suit EXIGENCE goals, e.g., service-level measurements of services spanning across multiple domains. In the coming year, metrics will be further refined and collected in the Deliverable D2.1: Metrics for Energy Consumption and Efficiency Metering.
Task T2.2: Measurement Methods for Energy Consumption and Production, is centered on developing and implementing methods and tools for measuring the metrics proposed by T2.1. This task has involved research into existing software and hardware solutions that could potentially meet the EXIGENCE project’s needs. The primary challenge lies in ensuring that these solutions accurately reflect the requirements set by the metrics, with accuracy and time resolution being two key factors. To address these challenges, several practical experiments have been conducted. A significant focus has been placed on exploring energy metering within virtual environments, where direct energy consumption measurement is not possible. Instead, techniques like the Running Average Power Limit (RAPL) are leveraged for estimation. Another key experiment has focused on energy measurement across multiple domains, including both physical (servers, 5G networks, terminals) and virtual (software processes, virtual environments) domains. In this experiment, both hardware and software-based measurement methods have been applied.
Task T2.3: Trustworthy Data Collection Layer and End-to-End Service Consumption Observability, focused on the challenges of collecting, storing, and exchanging data on energy consumption across multiple domains. This includes ensuring that data can be made available in a trustworthy manner. A major accomplishment in the first year of T2.3 has been the collaboration with standardisation organisations such as ETSI and IETF. By engaging with these bodies, the project aims to introduce EXIGENCE concepts that could potentially influence the direction of these organisations’ specific working groups.
WP3: Energy Usage Reduction & Coordination – Making Sustainability Actionable
This work package focuses on the operational capabilities of EXIGENCE’s energy efficiency architecture. Our contributions this year can be summarised as follows:
We conducted an in-depth analysis of the state-of-the-art (SOTA) green orchestration and incentive mechanisms for energy and carbon-efficient ICT services.
Container Management and Scheduling Systems
Kubernetes, the dominant container management system in cloud computing, was central to our study. We examined Kubernetes’ architecture, reviewed existing scheduling methods, and proposed extensions to improve its energy and carbon efficiency. Additionally, we explored the MANO framework as a complementary or alternative approach to Kubernetes.
Energy and Carbon-Aware Scheduling
We analysed various energy- and carbon-aware scheduling mechanisms proposed in the literature. Our findings include a gap analysis of current SOTA and a roadmap for potential improvements in this area.
Incentive Mechanisms for Sustainable Practices
We examined SOTA research on incentive mechanisms that account for all stakeholders in the ICT ecosystem. This review covers carbon sustainability in video streaming and machine learning applications, as well as behavioural and economic user incentives, decision-making theories, and pricing models.
Green Scheduler Architecture for EXIGENCE
We proposed a green scheduler architecture for EXIGENCE, designed to integrate energy and CO2 efficiency within the networking and computing ecosystem. This architecture enables efficient service execution and resource management across network domains. We also suggested specialised protocols to ensure the seamless integration of energy and CO2 efficiency, facilitating real-time communication, secure data exchange, and optimised resource management among network elements, APIs, and external systems.
Publications and Contributions
Our work has led to the publication of three papers in top-tier venues, advancing the SOTA in energy efficiency and green orchestration. Notably:
- ACM E-Energy: We demonstrate how the operational carbon emissions of synchronous Federated Learning (FL) training can be reduced to zero by leveraging renewable excess energy and spare computing capacity from cloud or edge resources. This approach achieves net-zero operational carbon emissions for this use case, using energy and load forecasts to optimise the selection of clients for efficient convergence and fair participation.
- IEEE TGCN: In this paper, we focus on minimising the overall energy consumption of FL processes in wireless communication networks. By orchestrating computational and communication resources across deep edge devices, we show that energy-aware scheduling can reduce the energy required for model training by 2 to 20 times compared to existing methods, while meeting performance targets.
- IEEE INFOCOM: We introduce a Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithm to reduce the resource footprint of services in distributed cloud systems by up to 20%, without compromising user QoS. The proposed RL-based scheduler can adapt to varying network conditions and setups without the need for costly retraining.
Finally, we outline the foundational concepts for creating effective incentive mechanisms for stakeholders involved in EXIGENCE use cases, along with an initial set of mechanisms. These efforts collectively push the boundaries of energy-efficient computing, carbon reduction, and green orchestration, paving the way for more sustainable ICT solutions.
WP4: Validation, Dissemination, and Impact – Spreading the Word
In 2024, WP4 played a pivotal role in establishing the project’s presence and expanding its reach through Task 4.2: Dissemination, Communication & Cooperation in Standardisation, and Task 4.3: Innovation & Exploitation Activities. Later, in M7, Task 4.1: Solutions Planning & Assessment, began laying the groundwork for the integrated demonstration of the measurement enablers and actuation components developed in WP2 and WP3, respectively, in alignment with the selected WP1 use cases.
Task 4.2 took the lead in outreach efforts, driving a steady flow of information and sharing key preliminary results from the work of various partners. These findings were transformed into engaging blog posts (such as this one!) and shared across social media platforms, with LinkedIn posts offering ongoing updates and discussions that kept the growing community connected. At the heart of the EXIGENCE project is the idea that reducing energy consumption begins with awareness, and the dissemination activities aimed to bring these conversations to the forefront of the community. A DIGEST Campaign focused on Green ICT, exploring a range of topics from standardisation to research papers, products, services, and tools. In addition to these efforts, the project contributed to technical dissemination, including active participation in 3GPP SA1 and publishing papers on the early-stage concepts emerging from various work packages. EXIGENCE’s key messages were also brought to life at global events, including conferences, panels, and workshops, where partners showcased the project’s progress.
Task 4.3 moved forward with the exploitation strategy, focusing on identifying exploitable results and defining their unique value propositions. This process was facilitated by an internal survey among partners, which identified key results from both individual and joint efforts. Preliminary analysis of the project’s foreground results also began, with a particular focus on scientific dissemination, commercialisation, and standardisation as potential pathways for exploitation.
Meanwhile, Task 4.1 initiated the planning for the project’s assessment activities. The release of Deliverable D4.1: Assessment Plan, in M10 marked a major milestone, with a detailed exploration of the initial outputs from the other work packages. This plan outlined how the project’s outcomes would be technically assessed on two physical testbed infrastructures—one at Instituto de Telecomunicações in Aveiro, Portugal, and the other at the Internet Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
In 2025, WP4 will enter a critical phase. Partners will continue to build upon the validation activities in the other work packages, preparing for the delivery of Deliverable D4.2: Preliminary Technological Assessment, by M19. This stage will also mark a significant opportunity for generating technical, scientific, and standardisation outcomes, with the goal of advancing the project towards concrete exploitable results.
Looking Ahead: The Road to 2025
As EXIGENCE enters its second year, the focus will shift to refining the architectural models, completing key deliverables, and preparing for the first round of technological assessments in 2025. With significant progress already made in understanding energy consumption patterns, developing sustainable solutions, and creating a robust framework for implementation, EXIGENCE is well on its way to achieving its goal of making ICT networks smarter, greener, and more energy-efficient.
