The rapid development in the technologies for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have generated a huge interest among embedded developers as it gives freedom from wires, easy development, reduced cost of hardware, reduced maintenance and very useful in unattended situations. WSN provides low cost solutions to variety of real-world problems. Sensors are low cost tiny devices with limited storage, computational Capability and Power. They can be deployed for various application such as detecting seismic activities, security and surveillance, navigational activities controlling nuclear reactors and many more. As sensor nodes are generally battery powered devices and have limited power and computational capabilities. The critical issue here is how to reduce the energy consumption of nodes so that the lifetime of the nodes can be increased. In this paper we will first list the power consumption areas of WSN nodes in the routing domain and then discuss the methods for power conservation in WSNs. Finally we will conclude the paper with future research directions.

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Routing energy efficiency wireless sensor network