SCTE Energy Standards and Operational Practices

The SCTE Standards Program develops standards and operational practices in several key areas to improve the application of environmentally friendly and sustainable procedures and products, to create solutions that lower overall costs and increase overall performance. These documents are consensus-developed and SCTE Engineering Committee approves SCTE standards. Many of these standards have also been approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and are so designated.

Find topics relevant to your organization, recommend new topics, and join the SCTE Standards Program to help shape the future of energy technologies in cable.

Within the cable employee base, the following employees should be involved in the adoption, implementation, and utilization of SCTE Energy Standards and Operational Practices:

• Access network managers and engineers
• Outside plant managers and engineers
• Power supply managers and engineers
• Critical facilities managers, design engineers, and architects
• Cable operator datacenter managers and engineers
• Cable operator energy managers and engineers
• Equipment engineering teams and inside plant equipment manufacturers
• Procurement managers, engineers, and teams
• Energy accounting managers 
• Product developers and managers

Vehicle Selection Workbook

Cable Operator Fleet Maintenance and Vehicle Selection Operational Practice

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 184 2022 SCTE Energy Management Operational Practices for Cable Facilities

SCTE 184 provides guidelines for design and management of mission-critical hub site facilities supporting the cable industry. SCTE 184 focuses on information, methods, metrics, and processes that balance operational energy efficiency and management with essential business availability requirements and infrastructure investment. This guideline leverages existing industry best practices for smart energy use in vital cable edge facilities and applies these to the specific characteristics and requirements of cable systems hub sites. 

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 186 2021  Product Environmental Requirements for Cable Telecommunications Facilities

ANSI/SCTE 186 defines environmental and sustainability requirements for the following equipment including but not limited to: CMTSs, receivers, modulators, video encoders, multimedia gateways, servers, routers, switches, network equipment, network storage units, edge routers, add-drop multiplexors and edge QAMs. This standard aligns with ANSI/SCTE 203 2014 for validation of compliance through test methods.

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 203 2019 Product Environmental Requirements for Cable Telecommunications Facilities —Test Methods

The specification purpose of ANSI/SCTE 203 is to define test methods to evaluate equipment compliance with criteria specified in ANSI/SCTE 186. This document specifies physical, environmental, electrical, and sustainability test procedures to evaluate equipment compliance with requirements defined in ANSI/SCTE 186. 

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 205 2022 Outside Plant Power Recommended Preventive Maintenance Operational Practice

This document is intended to deliver the information needed for a cable operator to properly maintain outside plant powering systems including the power supply, batteries, cable assemblies, and management and monitoring devices, while also providing a template to deliver comprehensive maintenance information back to management.

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 208 2021 Cable Operator Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data Collection Recommended Practices

SCTE 208 defines the process and function of performing a carbon audit based on cable operator greenhouse gas emissions to establish and measure a baseline or year over year comparison of emissions by which subsequent audits may be compared.

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 210 2020  Performance Metrics for Energy Efficiency & Functional Density of Cable Data Generation, Storage, Routing, and Transport Equipment

ANSI/SCTE 210 enables a cable operator to determine how well a piece of rack or shelf equipment performs in terms of minimizing the power required to do its particular job. In addition, this standard provides the means to quantify the amount of useful work the equipment provides per physical space. This release focuses on the Digital Data Transport critical facility equipment.  

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 211 2020 Energy Metrics for Cable Operator Access Networks

ANSI/SCTE 211 enables cable operators to measure how effective changes in the access network (AN) service impact energy consumption from both a high-level and functional operations perspective.  

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 212 2020  Cable Operator Energy Audit Framework and Establishment of Energy Baseline

ANSI/SCTE 212 defines a framework for cable system operators to establish energy baselines for their facilities and networks.

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 213 2020  Edge and Core Facilities Energy Metrics

ANSI/SCTE 213 provides procedures that help cable operators measure how effective changes in the service impact energy consumption from both high level and functional work perspectives.  

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 216 2020  Adaptive Power Systems Interface Specification (APSIS™)

ANSI/SCTE 216 enables cable operators to measure and control energy consumption associated with delivery of services. SCTE 216 defines software interfaces that allow energy measurement and optimization applications to command and control devices within a service delivery pipeline. 

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 218 2021 Alternative Energy, Taxes, Incentives, and Policy Reference Document

SCTE 218 is an operational practice that provides cable operators with a resource to evaluate alternative energy technology options based on a given geographic location, facility type, and existing or planned infrastructure.

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 219 2021 Technical Facility Climate Optimization Methodology

SCTE 219 provides cable operators with guidelines to assess facilities’ existing energy efficiency and climate conditions, including recommended actions to improve air flow and facility climate conditions to reduce energy costs. Also included are advanced cooling technologies such as air side and water side economizers. 

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 225 2020 Cable Operator Fleet Maintenance and Vehicle Selection Operational Practice

Cable operators run a distributed network covering thousands of miles connecting facilities to customers and facilities to facilities. This network requires maintenance, upgrades, installation and repairs. Also, new cable subscribers require visits to their site ensuring proper deployment of equipment and turn up of service. All of this is accomplished via a fleet of vehicles that if not managed optimally can impact both the company’s bottom line as well as environment.

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 226 2015 Cable Facility Classification Definitions and Requirements

This document presents a five tier classification approach to provide cable operators with a framework in which to categorize facilities and critical infrastructure, prioritize investment decisions, establish availability expectations, and to define performance levels for the cable industry.

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

(Withdrawn 2022) SCTE 228 2016 Inventory of Energy Efficiency Practices for Broadband Provider Facilities

This document is meant to apply to the cable industries facilities including critical facilities, office space, call centers and warehouses. The scope of this document does not include the outside plant.

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 229 2016 (R2022) Operational Practice for Cable Facility Design Process

This document addresses the design of cable facilities that house inside plant equipment which is part of the network through which services are delivered to customers.

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 231 2019 General Test Procedures for Evaluation of Energy Efficiency Metrics and in Support of Functional Density Metrics

This document covers the general test procedures that are common to all equipment types and specifies the environmental conditions for evaluating cable equipment energy efficiency metrics. Expectations of measurement equipment as well as guidelines on the recording of results are also covered. This standard will be included as a normative reference in each supplemental standard in the series covering metrics and specific test procedures for the various equipment types.

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 232 2019 Key Performance Metrics: Energy Efficiency & Functional Density of CMTS, CCAP, and Time Server Equipment

This document is the second of multiple parts in a series that provides the cable operator with a standard reference to determine how well a piece of rack or shelf equipment performs in terms of minimizing the power required to do its particular job. In addition, this standard provides the means to quantify the amount of useful work the equipment provides per physical space. This part of the series focuses on the CMTS, CCAP, and other related cable operator critical facility equipment.

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 234 2016 ISO 50001:2011 Energy Management Systems, Energy Metrics, With Guidance For Use

In 2011 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published 50001: Energy management systems -- Requirements with guidance for use. SCTE’s Energy 2020 Program aligns with the underlying principles of that publication and SCTE 234 2016 serves as the recognition of that international standard as the official cable industry standard. 

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 237 2017 Implementation Steps for Adaptive Power Systems Interface Specification (APSIS™)

The intent of this document is to outline the high-level implementation steps necessary for cable operators to enable/implement ANSI SCTE 216 2015: Adaptive Power Systems Interface Specification (APSIS™). Implementation Steps for Adaptive Power Systems Interface Specification (APSIS) provides the high-level overview to help identify essential steps necessary and a logical order of approaching the necessary steps to enable end-to-end energy control.

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 238 2017 Operational Practice for Measuring and Baselining Power Consumption in Outside Plant Equipment and Power Supplies

This operational practice covers techniques for measuring the energy consumption of outside plant (OSP) equipment, including power supplies, fiber optic nodes, RF amplifiers and other active electronic devices in the outside plant. This operational practice is to help cable operators determine the actual energy consumption of current and newer OSP devices as they are deployed in the field in order to 1) develop energy monitoring and management practices to improve energy efficiency in the OSP, and 2) to understand where improvements in next generation access network equipment are needed to achieve further improvements in energy efficiency.

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 241 2017 Key Performance Metrics: Energy Efficiency & Functional Density of Wi-Fi Infrastructure Equipment

This document defines how to use a standard methodology to measure the density of hardware to meet the needs of optimizing critical space, as well as measuring energy consumption for the various network element classes. This part of the series focuses on indoor critical facility Wi-Fi equipment types, Gateway Servers and Wi-Fi Controllers as well as outdoor strand-mounted Wi-Fi Access Points.

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 245 2023 Use Cases for Adaptive Power Using APSIS™

The intent of this document is to describe several energy management use cases that may be addressed with the ANSI SCTE 216 2015: Adaptive Power Systems Interface Specification (APSIS™) and SCTE 237 2017: Implementation Steps for Adaptive Power Systems Interface Specification (APSIS).

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 246 2018 Best Practices in Photovoltaic System Operations and Maintenance for Cable System Operator

This document provides recommended best practices for photovoltaic system operations and maintenance. This guide may not include all operations and maintenance routines or scenarios, but provides general guidance for safety practices, management, operations, and preventative maintenance of PV systems.

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 253 2019 Cable Technical Facility Climate Optimization, Operational Practice: Understanding Set Point Values, Part 1

This operational practice is intended to educate individuals working in broadband communications critical facilities on what cooling system set points are and how adjusting set points can impact cooling system operational efficiency. The objective is to provide engineers, technicians and contractors a basic understanding of those impacts so set point adjustments will not be done casually but instead be part of the overall goals to optimize the efficiency of the cooling and heating systems without risk of creating conditions which could cause information and communication technology (ICT) equipment to fail. There are significant implications with respect to the operational efficiency of the facility that can result from changing cooling system set points for the wrong reasons. A better understanding of cooling system set points will enable people working in critical facilities to avoid actions that may prove detrimental to the facility operation.

STANDARD

SCTE 267 2021 Optimum Load Shaping for Electric Vehicle and Battery Charging

This standard defines in simplistic terms how to create, transmit, and act upon a forecast optimum load shape (OLS) that may be used to manage the charging of electric vehicles (EVs) and facility batteries, or otherwise used to manage electrical load. This OLS standard provides for end-to-end, generation to load control of the electric power grid towards the goals of reducing energy costs, maximizing the use of renewable energy, and accelerating the adoption, monetization, resiliency, and societal benefits of microgrids, EVs, and batteries.

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 271 2021 Requirements for Power Sensing in Cable and Utility Networks

This specification provides precision, sampling rate, and configuration requirements if vendors choose to measure and report voltage and/or current in hardware and software to enable advanced power sensing in cable and utility networks. Included are requirements for sensing and communicating power quality observations from both the 60/75/90 VAC quasi-square wave HFC network and the 120/240 VAC supply from the electric power grid.

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 274 2021 Cable Operator Critical Facility Air Containment Operational Practice

This operational practice will address how airflow containment can be an effective strategy leading to increased critical facility efficiency, availability, and energy reduction. Airflow containment is the practice of controlling the flow of air in one or more ways such as hot aisle/cold aisle rack arrangement or other means that will be discussed in this operational practice. This document will expand on the topic introduced in SCTE 219. Also, SCTE 253 provides background information on setpoint management where airflow containment will help optimize that setpoint practice.

STANDARD

SCTE 275 2021 Electrical Grounding and Bonding for Cable Broadband Network Critical Facilities

This standard document includes practices for exterior system grounding and bonding, interior grounding systems, surge protection, roof mounted lightning protection, environmental handling for electric static discharge (ESD) sensitive equipment, commissioning, and maintenance.

STANDARD

ANSI/SCTE 278 2022 Standard Data Fields for Outside Plant Power

One of the largest capital and operational expenditures a Multiple System Operator (MSO) faces is the outside plant power network. This standard will define the baseline information an operator should retain for access network powering.

STANDARD

SCTE 282 2023 Implementing Inside Plant Network Platform Hot Standby Powering

Hot standby is the practice of reducing the locations of transformation of electricity from multiple power supplies to a single, or group of power supplies, thus increasing efficiency and decreasing energy lost to transformation at multiple points. This standard defines how an operator can effectively leverage hot standby to reduce energy consumption. Also in this standard, the parameters for equipment manufacturers are defined.

OPERATIONAL PRACTICE

SCTE 287 2023 Right-Sizing Outside Plant Power Supplies

In a cable broadband provider’s effort to become more energy efficient there is an opportunity to right-size an expanding arsenal of ferroresonant power supplies and to ensure the most efficient placement of those power supplies.

By increasing efficiency in placement, providers may benefit from reductions in operational and capital expenses, reduced Scope 2 emissions through less transmission loss to inefficient transformation, and extended runtimes. This creates potentially less need to deploy portable generators which can impact Scope 1 emissions.