Australia's Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) was formally launched in Melbourne on Tuesday as part one of the world's largest research effort into green telecommunications.

The Centre - a research partnership between the University of Melbourne, Alcatel Lucent's Bell Labs, and the Victorian Government - will focus on innovation in energy-efficient networks and technologies with the aim of reducing the impact of telecommunications on the environment.

Launched by the University of Melbourne's Professor Rod Tucker and Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs Vice President Jeong Kim, CEET - the first facility of its kind in Australia - will develop into a team consisting of more than 22 researchers and technology experts during the next three years. Mr. Kim said the collaboration would build on Alcatel Lucent's Bell Labs expertise.

"Bell Labs is building on its decades of expertise by partnering with one of the world's leading telecommunications research teams at the University of Melbourne and the Victorian Government to develop a centre for in-depth research into energy-efficient telecommunications," he said.

The Centre today launched nine research projects in the fields of modeling, transmission and fundamentals. Four projects will focus on energy consumption of telecommunications networks and enable the development of more sophisticated models of energy consumption. Three projects will explore techniques to reduce the energy consumption of transmission equipment in telecommunications networks. And a separate program of work will explore the physical and mathematical properties of photons and electrons which will enable a better understanding of future possibilities in the development of energy-efficient telecommunications equipment. Professor Tucker said demand for more energy efficient telecommunications would only increase as technology advanced.

"Today, telecommunications networks in Australia use about one percent of our energy supply and with increasing demands for bandwidth, this is expected to grow dramatically - unless we find ways to make our networks more efficient," Professor Tucker said.

"CEET represents a highly valuable opportunity for Victoria with the significant step it takes toward green telecommunications objectives. The research program draws on established strengths and collaborations with industry and research partners through initiatives such as GreenTouchTM - a global, industry-wide consortium formed to achieve improvement in energy efficiency by driving sustainable communications networks."