Get switched on about switching off

Office equipment is the fastest-growing area of energy consumption for business, accounting for about 20 per cent of total energy use, according to environmental group the Carbon Trust.

Businesses could make huge savings on their energy bills by implementing some cheap and easy measures to save power.

Computing is campaigning to improve the environmental credentials of IT departments, while reducing costs and improving operational efficiency.

The second point of Computing’s green charter is based on ensuring unused equipment is turned off when not in use.

Dr Garry Felgate, director of delivery and external relations at the Carbon Trust, says businesses that demonstrate a commitment to reducing energy will also reduce their costs.

‘Just by turning off PCs at evenings and weekends running costs can be cut by more than two-thirds, so there is no reason why energy reduction should not be a priority for every IT director this year,’ he said.

‘What is more, cutting energy also helps reduce carbon emissions, which is the main cause of climate change.’

The Carbon Trust recommends all businesses take steps to activate power-saving modes on PCs, monitors, fax machines and photocopiers.

Timers can also be installed on printers, vending machines and water coolers to ensure they are not left on overnight or at weekends – which can reduce energy use by 70 per cent.

Computers, and in particular monitors, are particularly power-hungry.

The Carbon Trust says a monitor accounts for almost two-thirds of a computer’s energy use, yet many offices leave IT systems and computers on at night for maintenance reasons, or simply because staff do not bother to turn off their machines.

A computer left on all the time will cost about £37 a year to run. But switch it off at night and at weekends, and this can be reduced to about £10 a year, saving enough energy to make almost 35,000 cups of coffee.

A few simple measures can lead to large savings, according to the National Energy Foundation (NEF).

All equipment should be switched off overnight, and machines without on/off switches should be turned off at the plug, while chargers and adapters can be unplugged when not in use.

‘Many people leave their mobile phone chargers connected all day long, even when they, and the phone, are hundreds of miles away,’ said a spokesman for the NEF.

‘It is also always worth looking to see if PC scanners are continuously using power in a ‘ready to scan’ mode – some draw a surprising amount of power when not in use,’ he said.

The NEF recommends setting PCs to power-saving modes so that the screen is switched off by Windows Power Management if it has not been used for more than a few minutes.

A PC screen will normally use as much energy when it is displaying a screen saver as when it is in use. Using a computer’s sleep mode can reduce its energy use by 60 to 70 per cent.

Some businesses have already introduced some of these simple power-saving measures.

Nick Monger-Godfrey, head of corporate responsibility at the John Lewis Partnership, says the company has been running a company-wide energy awareness campaign since 2005.

‘All non-essential equipment is turned off every night in our head office sites and trading branches, and we have procedures in place for powering down registers after trade in our John Lewis branches,’ he said.

‘This policy extends to the LCD displays on our head office telephones, which are all set to switch off in the evening and back on again in the morning to save energy consumption.’

Matthew O’Neill, head of group IT distribution systems at HSBC, says the banking giant is running a ‘switch it off campaign’ with posters in lifts and next to workstations.

‘The biggest single thing we can do is to switch equipment off,’ he said. ‘There is an awful lot of focus on data centres when in reality that is just a concentration. I think the main area is leaving equipment switched on, desktop PCs and so on.

‘It is a way of getting everyone involved. There are hundreds of thousands of desktops, and leaving them all on as well as having the air conditioning cool the output they create, all contributes to energy costs,’ he said.

HSBC has also been using automated shutdown systems.

‘We purchased software that goes out and checks desktops that are running based on rules we set. It sees what is running on the desktop, and if it is running applications it recognises them and shuts it down in a stateful way.

‘When the employee switches on the next day it brings back what they were using at that time, so they do not lose any of their information.’

Ross Taylor, managing director, E.ON Information Services UK, agrees that this combination of technical solutions and staff education is effective.

‘As a company we think firms should be putting their efforts into teaching staff to take personal responsibility for the energy we use, so that we can all have an impact on this,’ he said.

Additional reporting: Lara Williams

What do you think? Email us at feedback@computing.co.uk

Further Reading:

We launch Green Computing campaign

The Green Charter in full:

www.computing.co.uk/greencomputing

To sign up to the Charter email your details to:

greencomputing@computing.co.uk