By Graeme Wearden, 24 October 2005 15:35
NEWS Companies should encourage employees to switch off PCs at night, or they will continue wasting thousands of pounds per year, according to research by Fujitsu Siemens.
In a report released on Monday, the PC maker claimed that £123m is wasted every year in the UK alone powering PCs that could have been shut down or left in hibernation mode. The report also pointed out the environmental impact of all the wasted energy.
Fujitsu Siemens surveyed 1,000 employees, and found some 370 never turned off their computers before leaving the office for the day.
Garry Owen, head of product marketing at Fujitsu Siemens Computers, said: "UK businesses need to consider both the financial and environmental implications of leaving a computer running and make turning off their PCs each night a policy." Owen added that simply putting a computer into standby still means it is consuming power.
Fujitsu Siemens released its report to coincide with the start of 'Energy Saving Week' today.
With energy prices having soared in recent months, plus growing concerns over climate change, the amount of power used by PCs is a hot topic. The European Union recently agreed legislation to cut down on energy wasted by idle computers, including those left in standby.
Environment minister, Elliot Morley, said in June: "Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide are needlessly produced every year by computers, digital set top boxes, chargers and many other products left on standby mode. We know that products can be designed to be much more efficient and do less harm to the environment. Wasted energy is a hidden cost for consumers and in this day and age that is unacceptable."
There has been confusion in the past about whether it is better to turn PCs off when not in use, or to leave them switched on. Some people have claimed that regularly turning computers off can, over time, weaken links between components and damage hardware such as the hard drive.
According to some estimates, just turning off a monitor can save 75 per cent of the overall energy consumption of a PC.
Graeme Wearden writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
There are 10 comments. Join the discussion
1. Richard Barrington
Not the whole story!
EVEN if you turn it off at the front, 'wake on LAN' functionality will still draw the equivalent of a low energy lightbulb! You have to turn it off at the mains to bring the consumption to Nil.
FS estimates of the wasted energy is wrong by at least factor 3. There are about 38m PC's in the UK, this equates to about 20 million Tonnes of CO2... crap technology with appaling environmental footprint.
Time for a change.....
2. Miles
Windows Updates? Virus Scans?
Do you want these to happen during office hours?
3. anonymous
Well all that has happened in the company that I currently work for since this campaign started is that labels have been affixed to most PCs and their plugs saying Do NOT power off!
There is a lot of myth about climate change - weather patterns are not annual. There are 50, 100 and even 500 year overlays that should be taken into accont. Without carbon dioxide we would all be dead - plants need it to grow and as a by product produce oxygen that animals need - go figure.
4. Peter
Has "chip creep" been fixed then?
5. Chris
I've just started a rollout of Sun Rays and Terminal Services. One of the benefits from this is a huge reduction in energy costs as well as the reduced impact on the environment in building them and disposing of them in 10 years time.
6. anonymous
It would be sensible if servers - and network gear - could be usefully expected to honour idle times - or even to be programmable to turn off at a given time and back on again in the morning. That way you could run the backup, the overnight processing and the anti-virus and still turn it off afterwards. This applies as much to small businesses as it does to large.
7. Steve Somers
Crap figures
I really don't believe a PC in standby using les tha 10VA prosuces a ton of CO2 per year
What does 30000va of home heating produce then!!!!
8. Phill H
Its a convenience thing as well as a sanity thing - 5 minutes a day to boot up my PC is about 20 hours a year watching Windows startup screens!
On a serious note, it has to be up to manufacturers to make electronic equipment effecient in standby mode - or up to governments to set minimum standards for energy efficiency.
9. anonymous
I can see no reason for leaving a screen on unattended overnight - power it off and leave your sytem unit running. I also run AV overnight and but am also fed up of fixing PCs that get tired and fail to boot up, but I always power off totally when on holidays or at weekends - you would'nt leave a PC on at home if you were away for this length of time so why at work!
10. Adam
Wouldn't it be nice if AV and Updates could run when the machine is in standby and for it to then shut itself down.
Macs are capable of starting at a certain time each day on demand. How much power dies it require to maintain this? Surely its less then standby and you don't have to wait for start up in the morning.