Turn off computers! Reduce energy costs!

A new report issued by the Alliance to Save Energy, a Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit organization that promotes energy efficiency worldwide, and 1E, a British provider of Windows management solutions, provides some interesting insights into the relationship between typical computer usage and energy costs.

For example, did you know that a company with 10,000 PCs wastes more than $165,000 a year in electricity costs if 60 percent of computers are left on overnight?

Here are some other interesting points noted in the PC Energy Report 2007:

  • Out of 104 million office PCs in the United States, at least 31.2 million are left on all night.
  • Turning off every work computer in the United States every night would save as much carbon dioxide emissions as taking every car in the state of Maryland off the road.
  • It takes between 60 and 300 trees to absorb the yearly carbon dioxide emissions generated by a single computer left on 24 hours a day.
  • The simple step of shutting computers down each night can save a 10,000 PC enterprise more than $165,000 per year in energy costs. Across the United States, this adds up to more than $1.72 billion dollars and almost 15 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

    The report includes the results of polling provided by Harris Interactive and shows reasons why some workers do and others do not turn off computers when they leave work. The polling, conducted in May 2007, provided results from 2,915 adult workers within the Untied States.

    You can read the complete PC Energy Report.

    AccountingWEB.com Jun-20-2007
    Categories: Technology, Computers, News This Month
    Times read: 2899
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    User comments Liz Zitzow , 22 June 2007 @ 19:47 PM  Rating
    Turning Off Computers.
    Most computers schedule maintenance tasks to be run overnight, such as virus updates, software updates, and other vital tasks. Turning them off gives you a choice of slowing down your work during peak time with these activities or risking viral infections.

    A better alternative is to arrange for the computing power to be used 24-7 through the charitable donation of the computing power when not in use. The most famous of these is SETI, but there are hundreds of scientific research projects, including important health care projects, which could use the benefit of your computer when you're not using it.

    --Liz Z, EA London

     
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