Here’s the Deal With “clean Energy” Charging
You may have heard the internet talking about the new “Clean Energy Charging” iPhone feature, for better or for worse. Marques Brownlee calls it a ” rare W for the environment “, while others criticize it for slowing down charging. The thing is, it’s a bit more complicated, and it doesn’t just affect your iPhone. It’s definitely good quality and you’ll probably never notice it in normal use.
Apple isn’t the only company to roll out clean energy features: Microsoft is also in the game and has actually outpaced Apple. Right now, you’ll find similar charging options on iPhone, Windows, and Xbox. Despite all the hype, clean energy features are quite simple and offer a creative solution to reduce our collective carbon footprint produced by technology.
How the Clean Energy features work
Whether it’s charging your iPhone or installing updates on your Xbox, all of these functions work in the same way : your device will look for regional carbon intensity data, if available, to determine when a higher percentage of electricity is available in your area. low carbon sources in your power grid (such as solar, wind or hydropower) are provided. It does not wait until there are no carbon sources left in the energy system, but precisely determines the periods when carbon sources are least used. It will then schedule background tasks to run during these periods of cleaner energy to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the device.
So your iPhone will wait until the electricity is the greenest to charge your device. If you pick up your iPhone while this is happening, you’ll see a warning that charging is on hold until low-carbon energy is available. It works as part of the optimized battery charging feature , which learns from your iPhone usage and only finishes charging when iOS thinks you need a fully charged battery. In theory, iOS will only use clean energy charging if it thinks you won’t need power yet. That’s why Apple says it won’t work during disruptions to your normal routine, such as when you’re traveling.
On Microsoft’s part, your Xbox or PC may wait until it deems it will have the least environmental impact to run automatic updates in the background. The Xbox defaults to Shutdown Mode, which consumes much less power than Sleep Mode. The off mode still supports automatic updates and saving your place in the game, but takes approximately 45 seconds to turn on and does not allow for voice activation or remote wakeup.
This is nothing particularly new, by the way: Microsoft started testing a clean energy approach with system updates back in March 2022. Apple released the Clean Energy Charging feature as part of iOS 16.1 on October 24th.
So why are people all of a sudden so angry at the possibility of clean energy?
There seem to be two sides of criticism here. First, it is a rude reaction from the right, who view this technology as a type of liberal indoctrination. As beloved Texas Senator Ted Cruz put it :
Cruz and other right-wing people pretend to be crazy because it makes them money. But when it comes specifically to the Xbox, they point to an issue that all free-spirited Americans should be angry about. They claim that Microsoft is forcing Xbox users to embrace these new environmental regulations and is extending the same view to any company that dares to implement green energy features as well.
This, of course, is nonsense. You can open your iPhone right now, go to Settings > Battery > Battery & Charging Health and turn off Clean Energy Charging at any time. Thus, if this feature is activated when you need to charge your iPhone, you can quickly turn it off and on. Apple even gives you the option to turn it off for a day if you want to keep using it in the future. You can do the same on Xbox by going to Profile & System > Settings > General > Power Options , putting the console back to sleep if you missed fastboot or any of its other features when you turned it on .
But it points to a second major criticism: for the most part, these settings are enabled by default after a system update. Apple didn’t ask you if you want to enable green energy charging after iOS 16.1 – it just added it for you. Microsoft didn’t make sure your console now boots into shutdown mode instead of hibernation.
I can understand the dissatisfaction with adding customizations without your explicit consent, but I also understand why companies do it in this case. Since each device actually saves only a small amount of energy individually, you need a massive movement of energy-saving devices to make an impact. Besides, most of us will never notice the difference. Your iPhone most likely won’t use clean power charging when you need fast charging after you forgot to plug in last night. You’ll never know if your Xbox switched its scheduled update from 1am to 3am because it had more wind power to work with at that hour. In practice, this feature is often straightforward and helps reduce our collective carbon footprint.