Gartner has published an article that shows that by simply activating power management on PCs, an organisation of 2500 PCs can save 43% of the power consumed by those PCs (433 MWh), which translates to an annual saving of about R240 000 in South African terms. Furthermore, planned Eskom tariff increases will escalate these savings rapidly. (more…)

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Most newish PCs and all notebooks/laptops have Power Management settings that enable you to minimise the machine’s power consumption, especially for the times when you are not using it. It is possible to save 10% of its power requirement per day through implementing these simple settings which progressively switch off components such as the screen, hard drives, processor, etc. Information Technology has created a help document (pdf) to guide you through setting power management on your PC for Windows XP and Vista. If you would rather want a technician to talk you through the procedure, contact the IT Helpline at (021-808)4367 or ithelp at sun.ac.za.

And of course it should be standard practice to switch off the PC (at the wall socket) when you leave work and over weekends. Also note that screensavers use electricity unnecessarily; rather set your screen to switch off.

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