A system for optimizing power allocation for each optical transmitter in an optical transmission system, the system comprises at least two intensity modulated optical transmitters, each of which is controlled by a modulator; an optical channel that can be spatially multiplexed by a multiplexer; and at least two optical detectors, for detecting the transmitted modulated signals. Each of the modulators are adapted to modulate the transmitters such that the electrical power consumption of the optical transmitters is minimized by a modulation scheme of the modulators, that uses energy efficient convex optimization to multiplex the transmitted optical signals, by the multiplexer in a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) scheme. Each of the modulators are adapted to modulate the transmitters such that the capacity is maximized by a modulation scheme of the modulators, that uses energy efficient convex optimization to multiplex the transmitted optical signals, by the multiplexer in a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) scheme.