EON clearly outperforms all the WDM approaches in energy efficiency per GHz (power[w]spent on providing capacity[bps]using a certain spectrum[GHz] providing between 60% and 150% improvement compared to single line rate (SLR) and multiple line rate(MLR) architectures besides,in we proposed a novel protection scheme, with the rate of the backup transponders adapted to the current required bandwidth requirements to reduce the energy consumption . Fig.3 shows the average energy savings that could be achieved with the different approaches on a working and weekend day. As can be noticed, EON is the technology that could benefit the most from such an innovative protection scheme (i.e. energy saving up to 11% and 18% can be achieved on a working and a weekend day, respectively).