Energy Management

Spurring energy markets while driving efficiencies to reduce energy-related costs and emissions.

Click through to learn about our 2025 impact in action. For detailed energy management data, please see our 2025 data table.

Please note that 2025 data is estimated. Final values will be available in Q2 2026.

Our Approach

Our Approach

We take an agile approach to energy management, continuously seeking new and better ways to power our network and operations. Our current efforts focus on:

• Driving energy efficiency across our network and operations to meet customer and regulatory demands
• Enhancing data analysis by compiling and evaluating energy-use data to inform and optimize actions
• Investing in renewable energy

To uphold best practices, we maintain energy management systems, strategies and frameworks aligned with ISO 50001 principles, including:

• Identifying suitable targets for energy management
• Applying data-driven approaches
• Critically evaluating outcomes and results
• Continually improving, and adjusting, policies and systems to reflect advanced energy management capabilities and adoption of best-in-class practices

Energy Efficiency

Leveraging lower-carbon energy sources is key to reducing our energy footprint. Just as important is identifying ways to reduce costs and energy use through greater efficiencies across our facilities and network.

Facilities

• Energy Efficiency Projects: We complete hundreds of facility energy efficiency projects, ranging from small-scale efforts such as replacing light fixtures to complex initiatives like entire mechanical system replacements.
• Enterprise Building Management Solution (EBMS): EBMS gathers and presents facility equipment data, helping us understand equipment performance and enhance predictive maintenance. It also identifies where we can potentially reduce unnecessary energy use.
• Proof-of-Concept Energy Trials: Our network organization leverages internal and external resources to test ideas for scalable energy savings programs. 

Network

• Transformation and Decommissioning: We decommission and remove obsolete network capacity and hardware.
• Fiber Adoption: We are transitioning our network from copper to fiber, dramatically reducing energy consumption while boosting download speeds by up to 166 times.
• Cell Site Sleeping: We use AT&T-patented machine learning (ML) algorithms and automation to optimize and enable select cell site capacity to “sleep” under low loads. By “sleeping,” cells conserve energy without impairing customer experience.
• Anomaly Detection: We use ML and analytics to identify cell sites, radios and central offices that consume excessive energy or experience unusual spikes in energy use, engaging repair teams to improve on-site efficiency.
• Data Centers: We update select server settings in our data centers to allow for periods of “sleeping” and frequency reduction when central processing unit (CPU) loads are low.
• Video Optimizer: Our open-source video optimizer reduces traffic carried on global networks, helping developers optimize how applications are designed. This decreases hardware deployment and associated energy use.

Data Management

Accessible, understandable data is essential to effective management. Our energy management information platform enhances data use in two ways:

• Centralization and Oversight: Each month, all utility invoices are uploaded to a centralized platform accessible to internal network operators, real estate managers and other employees who manage energy use. Bills are audited to identify anomalous usage and accuracy of charges.
• Analysis and Optimization: The Energy team uses data from our centralized platform to benchmark energy performance, set expectations and budgets and assess use trends. Employees and contractors can access a dashboard with facility-level energy data and management tools to inform decisions and analysis.

Renewable Energy

We evaluate large-scale renewable energy opportunities that benefit the company, our customers and the communities we serve. Most of our renewable energy comes from off-site solar and onshore wind Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (VPPAs). Through these agreements, we acquire renewable energy credits (RECs) and retire them to reduce our Scope 2 emissions.

We also invest in community solar projects. These projects help increase the volume of renewable energy available to local markets, advancing energy access in the communities we serve. While we procure most of our renewable energy from external sources, we also look for opportunities to increase on-site alternative energy to further reduce costs and diversify our energy portfolio.

Energy Management Governance

Oversight responsibility of energy management includes:

• Board of Directors Governance and Policy Committee (GPC): Oversees and provides guidance and perspective, as deemed appropriate, to the Board and management on corporate responsibility (CR) strategy, policies, programs and reporting. Our Head of CR and other senior leaders present at GPC meetings throughout the year. Materials and discussions include but are not limited to digital divide, privacy, environmental stewardship, CR reporting and political and charitable contributions.
• Corporate Responsibility Governance Council: Comprises executive leaders responsible for business areas most closely linked to our corporate responsibility priorities.
• Senior Vice President of Engineering and Operations (E&O): Responsible for network resilience and oversees the management of energy-related network operation impacts.
• Vice President of Implementation, Provisioning and Optimization: Leads the Energy Management team within the E&O organization.
• Energy Management Team: Oversees various programs, including deregulated purchase strategies and regulated utility rate optimization. Also provides direction on corporate energy and infrastructure policy directives, renewable energy purchases and development and implementation of scaled energy efficiency and energy conservation measures.

Impact In Action

Our 2025 Impact in Action

Industry-Leading Renewable Energy Procurement

During 2025, AT&T was ranked on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Green Power Partnership National Top 100. Throughout the year, our large-scale renewable energy projects delivered more than 3 million RECs, enough electricity to power nearly 173,000 U.S. homes for a year.¹

In 2025, we further expanded our availability of renewable energy by signing a new VPPA agreement with Doral Renewables. The Cold Creek project is a 430 MW facility that is expected to generate over 900,000 MWh annually.

In 2025, we began exploring battery energy storage systems (BESS), which can capture and store renewable energy when it is abundant, releasing it when demand is higher. AT&T is focused on BESS opportunities to help spur additional renewable deployment while reducing the intermittency of renewables and leading to a more stable grid. BESS can also reduce the reliance on higher-emissions peaker plants during peak demand times. AT&T plans to continue to pursue BESS deals where it makes sense for the company and benefits the communities we serve. We also executed agreements with 20 community solar projects across four states, totaling approximately 160,000 MWh.

As of year-end 2025, our domestic renewable energy portfolio produced nearly 3.3 million MWh, including more than 1,000 MWh of alternative energy from on-site sources.

Pursuing Energy Efficiency

In 2025, we implemented over 510,000 energy efficiency and emissions reduction projects, bringing the total to more than 2.1 million since 2015. Taken together, these efforts will have driven 709 million kWh of annual energy savings (more than 10.1 million MWh since 2015) and gross annualized energy cost savings of over $75 million (nearly $943 million since 2015). We currently also have 16 active proof-of-concept energy trials to test scalable energy savings programs.

By compiling and analyzing building, weather and utility data, we optimized energy use at eight central offices in 2025, resulting in approximately $1 million in energy consumption savings. We also completed over five building energy audits and over 15 physical site reviews, identifying additional savings opportunities and efficiencies. These audits increased awareness across our real estate portfolio of energy savings strategy and efforts.

The Energy Team also launched a new building site survey program to identify additional energy savings opportunities. The Energy Team completed over 125 site surveys, allowing them to take a proactive approach to identifying additional inefficiencies and potential energy savings at sites.

In 2025, we began using an additive in HVAC systems at cell phone towers to restore equipment to near original specifications, reducing energy consumption by over 5,000 MWh. We plan to scale this solution across more sites in the future. We also increased the energy efficiency at our cell sites by replacing equipment with newer, more efficient radio technology.

Network Foundation Model

Developed by AT&T Labs, in 2025 we implemented an industry-leading Network Foundation Model (NFM). It’s an advanced AI model trained on network data including configuration, inventory and time series performance metrics. We’ve found that when we develop applications with our NFM, we can build them up to four times faster with more accurate solutions, driving energy efficiency and cost savings. It’s also helping us to expand both our cell site sleeping and energy anomaly detection efforts. For instance, in 2025, we began a trial to get more granular in our anomaly detection. In addition to tracking anomalies at the cell site level, we began testing at the individual radio level. Assuming the trial is successful, we’ll use the radio-level anomalies to drive business decisions related to energy savings.

We’re also using the NFM to support our expansion of cell site sleeping from LTE to 5G. It enables smarter, integrated management of sleeping functions across both technologies, allowing for increased energy savings and operational efficiency as 5G functionality becomes available. Our goal in 2026 is full 5G/LTE integration of the program

Driving Network Efficiency

Since 2015, our network energy intensity has fallen by approximately 91% per petabyte (PB) of network traffic carried.

Throughout 2025, we continued transitioning our network from copper to fiber, resulting in savings of approximately 660,000 MWh since 2024, lowering our carbon footprint by over 232,000 metric tons of CO₂e. We expect our copper-to-fiber transition to reduce our energy consumption from 2024 through the end of 2028 by 1.06 million MWh and emissions over the same period by approximately 740,000 metric tons of CO₂e. Read our Circularity issue brief to learn more about our copper reclamation and fiber transition approach.

Global Energy Intensity (MWh/PB)

2025 Data

Energy Management Data²

Related Key Topics

Circularity

• Circularity Framework
• Product Life Cycle
• Operational Waste

Efficiency & Emissions

• Lowering Emissions
• Building Resilience
• Seizing Business Opportunities

Environment, Health & Safety Compliance

• EHS Framework
• Governance
• Employee Awareness

Natural Resources

• Biodiversity
• Water Management
• Paper Procurement

Network Resilience

• Network Expansion
• Driving Resilience
• Business Continuity

Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Oversight & Governance
• Employee Skilling
• Managing Energy Impacts

View All Key Topics