Solar Protocol is a new open source technology which aims to make the existing internet more sustainable. The ‘Green Protocol’ runs on a series of solar powered-web servers. The use of solar energy is not the only new thing introduced as an alternate to our usual carbon-intensive web servers, the traffic forwarding method is also changed. It’s now guided by the sun, and the traffic is forwarded to the server that carries the most energy.

The project is designed to disperse solar powered servers across different locations around the world. With such a server rich design, internet traffic is not confined to servers in specific geographical areas (which are usually closest to the user’s proximity). Instead the protocol changes the route depending on the sunshine.

Impact of Internet on environment is worse

Quite negatively, the Internet as the backbone of our daily tasks has a pretty bad impact on Earth’s environment. The energy it consumes comes from carbon-backed energy generation systems that emit excessive greenhouse house gases (GHG). 

Not surprisingly, these GHG emissions are equivalent to that of the global airline industry. And now things are taking an ugly turn. With more expansion of internet services, such as blockchain storage systems, these GHG emissions have risen to record. 

A single Bitcoin transaction on its blockchain accounts for 6.8 million VISA transactions. Fortunately, some global efforts have come to the surface indicating the efforts of engineers and computer scientists all around the world to make internet sustainable. 

The protocol is based on natural intelligence

Solar Protocol changes the way the Internet works by introducing two pillar changes. First is the deployment of solar powered servers. A solar powered server is a regular network server that uses a solar panel and battery for energy generation and storage.

Second feature of Solar Protocol is a new algorithm that works on natural intelligence. By nature’s intelligence, the team aims to divert network traffic to the server which has the most sunshine exposure. In contrast, traditional algorithms forward traffic to the target server nearest to the user.

Sunshine is gone, so are the servers

During the night time, the servers are shut down and those active at other geographical areas with different time zones become active.

Each server has the same service that is accessed as the sunlight exposure increases. Interestingly the team has intelligently configured the services that correspond to the level of energy stored for a server. For example, the website of Solar Protocol will change if you visit at different times. The resolution and styling are lowered if the energy is low thereby saving it as well as the load time for the visitor. 

Currently the sun powered network is small, there might be chances of no service. Solar Protocol aims to increase the network size to put more servers around the globe to enable seamless and ideal QoS as of normal carbon-intensive networks. It’s open source technology and you can set your own server freely.

It’s amazing how our everyday compatriots (sun and wind) could be used to power the Internet. Fortunately, the idea of generating green power is appreciated around the world and considered a practical approach for powering data centers. The number of companies offering solar power for commercial purposes has also increased lately.