In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), energy is always precious for sensor nodes. To save energy, censoring is introduced to cut the total number of transmission by only transmitting informative data. This algorithm, however, ignores the energy consumption during the delivery of parameters, which can be significant comparing to the saved power. In this paper, we consider the adaptive censoring from the energy perspective. A distributed censoring algorithm with energy constraint is developed that allows sensor nodes to make autonomous
decisions on whether to transmit the incoming data. We show that with the proposed algorithm, the overall energy consumption of the WSNs is reduced, while the performance loss in terms of the estimation error is negligible. Simulation results validate its effectiveness.