Switch Off Your Office Equipment and Save Money

Although technological innovation will improve the efficiency of electronic data processing (EDP) equipment, energy will be wasted if EDP equipment is left running when it is not being used. Newsham and Tiller (1992) presented data that established that there are long periods during both night and day when desktop computers are switched on but not used, and that significant energy consumption and electrical demand savings could be achieved if the time when computers were turned on could be more closely tailored to actual use. These data helped establish the technical foundations for the US Environmental Protection Agency's 'Energy Star' office equipment energy efficiency labeling program. Further, our data showed that a public information campaign using reminder stickers produced only modest reductions in computer on-time, and that these modest reductions were not maintained over an eight-week period. We predicted greater and more durable savings from automatic power management, which we were still in the process of evaluating with field trials at that time. In this article we describe the results of field trials of an automatic power management device for desktop personal computers, and outline the cost savings that might be achieved if automatic power management were applied to office EDP equipment. We also comment on the future prospects and challenges facing the Energy Star program.