You need a power management strategy. Can you do it all with only the tools in the box?

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Personal computers suck up enormous amounts of electricity—often when they aren’t even being used. Manufacturers are tackling the problem.

Some of the biggest energy hogs in a company sit in front of workers everyday: their PCs.

For a company that has 10,000 personal-computer desktops, for example, just leaving most of them turned on all night can cost more than $165,000 a year in electricity bills, while spewing more than 1,380 tons of carbon dioxide into the air per year, estimates a 2007 report by the Alliance to Save Energy, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

That’s roughly the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that come from driving a car for two months. In all, the group estimates upwards of $1.7 billion is being wasted in the U.S. with about 15 million tons of carbon emitted by desktops left on overnight.

As a result, corporate IT managers are clamoring for ways to rein in their PC energy expenses. And technology manufacturers are responding. For instance, Array Networks Inc. last November announced that its DesktopDirect program would let people remotely access their desktop even when it is turned off. Dell Inc. says the displays on its laptop computers use 43% less energy after older cathode screens have been swapped out with more efficient LED ones. And Hewlett-Packard Co. says its has saved 41% energy consumption on its lineup of PCs, compared with 2005 models, because of fewer components and other factors. Many other technology manufacturers are going green, as well.

“In the end, this all adds up to smart business,” says Satjiv Chahil, senior vice president of personal systems world-wide marketing for H-P, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Returns on Investment

Guidance Solutions Inc., an e-commerce developer, says its desktop energy consumption has stayed roughly the same despite increasing the work force to 50 from 30 employees since 2008 because it switched to more efficient machines. The company’s 200 desktops and laptops from H-P use about 40% less power than earlier models. “It’s a return on the investment of being green,” says Jon Provisor, chief technology officer and co-owner of the Marina del Rey, Calif., firm.

“It is definitely a good by-product,” Mr. Bharadwaj says.

The move to greener PCs has picked up steam over the past five years, following mounting pressure from shareholders and environmental groups to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that most scientists believe cause global warming. The PC makers have also faced heat for not doing enough to keep obsolete models out of the scrap heap. Many have since launched computer take-back programs, and have also switched to more recyclable materials.

“I think what motivates PC companies to be green is two things: One, the customers are asking for it. And the other big driver is pure competition. As we enter the 21st century low-carbon economy, they are going to have to do it,” says Andrea Moffat, senior director of programs at Ceres, a Boston-based network of investors, environmental groups and others interested in pushing corporations to be greener.

Three of the more active manufacturers in green PCs have been Dell, H-P and Apple Inc.

H-P, which has long operated an environmental program, ramped up its efforts on PCs in 2005 after Mark Hurd took over as chief executive and asked, “What more can we do?,” Mr. Chahil says. H-P redesigned its entire PC product line in 12 months, beginning in 2006, to include green features such as more efficient power supplies and the ability to go into power-saving sleep mode faster.

More recently, H-P in 2008 launched an EliteBook line of laptops that lets the user access email, calendars and contacts without having to power up the computer. The laptops use a technology called QuickLook, a separate, miniature operating system that doesn’t require booting up the machine’s main OS. QuickLook is also a feature on H-P’s ProBook line of laptops.

Earlier this year, the company began shipping some consumer laptops featuring batteries that can hold a charge for as long as three years. That saves energy because they don’t have to be recharged as much, H-P officials say.

Meanwhile, Dell over the past few years has revamped its OptiPlex desktop and Latitude laptop lines to include energy-saving features. Last year, the Round Rock, Texas, company introduced Latitude models that also can access email and Internet sites without booting up the computer; these models also have batteries that last twice as long as those of the previous model—six hours instead of three. One of the biggest savings, Dell officials say, has come from the shift to LED screens on laptops.

Among the biggest beneficiaries of the energy savings: Dell itself. The company more than a year ago installed night shut-off software in 50,000 desktops and notebooks across a number of its operations world-wide, achieving an estimated $1.8 million in power savings annually. “It’s eating your own dog food, if you will, but we practice a lot of this,” says David Lear, Dell’s director of environmental affairs.

Remote Control

Software makers are also stepping up to address the problem of PC energy. Verdiem Corp.’s Surveyor program, for example, lets IT managers remotely adjust energy use of computers—such as being able to shut them off when not in use. The Seattle company says its customers have saved more than $30 million in energy costs since it began offering the service about three years ago.

One customer, Cox Communications Inc., says it has seen a 40% drop in energy consumption in 15,000 desktops since the company began deploying Surveyor last April. The Atlanta cable firm, a unit of Cox Enterprises Inc., uses Surveyor to remotely turn on desktops at night when they need software updates, and then turn them back off when the download is complete, says Peter West, vice president of IT and operational development. Mr. West says the efficiency gains add to those the company has achieved by using energy-saving Dell computers.

“This really does just take it up a notch,” Mr. West says.

–Mr. Carlton is a staff reporter in the San Francisco bureau of The Wall Street Journal. He can be reached at jim.carlton@wsj.com.

Global survey reveals the majority of businesses are missing out on the potential cost savings from PC estate power management technologies and policies

Survey results released today have revealed a reluctance to implement power management technologies and policies and a lack of awareness of their potential cost and power-saving benefits.

Only 10 percent of companies are using desktop power management, according to the worldwide survey of over 500 IT professionals carried out by systems management appliance vendor, KACE.

The survey respondents cited the availability of computers for systems administration tasks such as patching as the number one reason for not deploying desktop power management (43 percent). But, at the same time, it emerged that 34 percent felt users did not want their machines powered down automatically.

Despite this perception on the part of both IT staff and end-users not to leave responsibility for managing the power consumed by PC and laptop estates to automated systems, just over 20 percent relied on staff to implement power management policies manually.

“I was surprised by the findings of the survey,” Jim Docherty, KACE managing director of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) told eWEEK Europe. “They reveal a lack of education and awareness of the potential savings available by being smarter about the way businesses are powering their PC and laptop estates, especially when you think about each PC system being left on to the standby light on your TV. Multiply that by the eight hours a day they are left on, unused and then apply it to the thousands of PCs a company can run, and you get an idea of the order of magnitude of power savings we’re talking about.”

Almost half of the survey respondents were not aware of the cost savings that could be achieved (48 percent) and, perhaps most surprisingly, this lack of awareness was highest among frontline IT staff (58 percent), as opposed to senior decision makers.

Docherty suggested the lack of awareness stemmed from misconceptions about the capabilities of PC power management tools. “The message that came through from the survey was that IT thought these tools would prevent them from carrying out [out-of-hours] maintenance like asset management or patching, but that’s not the case with our technology,” he said.

“You can remotely wake up a PC to do maintenance on it and power it down again, just as you would switch off the lights in an office. When the cleaner comes in after hours they switch on the lights to clean and simply switch them off again when they’re done.”

And he added that traditionally, the focus on IT power savings has centred on the data centre, “because the majority of power used in cooling and running key systems is spent there”. But the survey revealed those respondents that had implemented desktop power management reported higher cost and power savings than had been expected.

“I’m sure there is wider capacity for power management tools built into systems management tools already being used to be turned on,” he added. “It’s just not being exploited.”

Join this exclusive webinar featuring guest speaker Forrester Research, Inc. Analyst and industry expert, Doug Washburn, as he describes the potential impact of PC power management on your company’s bottom line!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
1:00PM EDT/10:00AM PDT

Over 1,000 Faronics customers have dramatically reduced operating costs by eliminating up to 70% of their computer energy consumption. These savings equate to up to $75,000 per year for every 1,000 computers.

By deploying PC Power Management, ADT UK is on track to save 434,000 kWh in a year.

Register Today – September 22, 1pm ET

Join this exclusive webinar featuring guest speaker Forrester Research, Inc. Analyst and industry expert, Doug Washburn, as he describes the potential impact of PC power management on your company’s bottom line!

Over 1,000 Faronics customers have dramatically reduced operating costs by eliminating up to 70% of their computer energy consumption. These savings equate to up to $75,000 per year for every 1,000 computers.

By deploying PC Power Management, ADT UK is on track to save 434,000 kWh in a year.

Join this webinar to learn how your organization can benefit from PC Power Management with a solid business case and a verifiable ROI within half a year.