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IT Energy Reduction: Computer Power Management
CDW estimates that companies can save 17 percent in IT energy costs by adopting energy efficiency initiatives.
Read more statistics & mini-tips. Return to Energy Campaign.
- Featured Blog Post: Five Things You Can Do in Five Minutes to Reduce Your Power Use
- Featured Software: Windows 7 has many new power saving features. Read more in our blog.
- Featured Article: Greening Your IT Through Your Software Choices
- Featured Partner: Climate Savers Computing Initiative - join as an individual or afflilate member at no cost
Don't forget to check out the forums and featured products below.
Articles
Blog Posts
- Five Things You Can Do in Five Minutes - Part 1 Overview
- Five Things You Can Do in Five Minutes - Part 2 Software
- Five Things You Can Do in Five Minutes - Part 3 Hardware
- Five Things You Can Do in Five Minutes - Part 4 Enhance Your Impact
- Windows 7 blog post
- How to Save Energy with Windows Vista
- Using Your Computer's Power-Management Features
- Reduce Your Computer's Power Consumption in Minutes
- Free Software Tool Cuts PC Energy Use
Webinar Archives
Community Threads
Other Resources
- Climage savers computing offers step-by-step guides to set power management on most computers.
- Computer World: Economy Nips Power-Saving IT Purchases. A 2009 CDW Corp report found that more organizations are using desktop power management features.
- EarthJustice: Greening Your Gadgets
- Environmental Leader: Citing Cost, Firms De-emphasize Energy Efficiency in IT Purchases
- Support.com: How To Green Your PC– Video explaining power management
- eHow.com: How to Change Power Options on a Computer – Another step-by-step guide with photos for changing options on a PC.
Microsoft really focused on making Windows 7 more energy efficient. They made changes including tweaking the way Windows works with displays, adding new tools for managing energy consumption, and changing the way the operating system runs different services in the background. Softchoice estimates that 88% of corporate PCs can run Windows 7 today. Check out our article Should You Upgrade to Windows 7?
The Smart Strip has 10 outlets that you plug your computer and peripherals into. When you power down your computer, the Smart Strip automatically shuts down the power to your computer's peripherals and it uses less than one watt of power when fully energized.
Recommended by both Microsoft and Climate Savers Computing, Edison allows you to control the power management settings on your PC when the monitor shuts off or when the system sleeps. It even estimates how much energy you are saving. Available for Windows XP or Vista. They also have a professional version called Surveyor.
We have never used this product, so can not recommend it, but if their claims are true, it seems to be worth the cost. According to their website, “Unlike the Energy Saver software built into Mac OS X, Power Manager defines periods of inactivity clearly and enforces sleep regardless of rogue applications or processes.”
This electricity usage monitor connects to appliances and assesses efficiency by calculating electricity expenses by the day, week, month, or year.
