Save Power While Delivering Technology

One of the best and easiest way to save energy when computing is to save power on your desktop and laptop computers.

Purchase and deploy efficient equipment

Laptop computers are more efficient than desktops - primarily to help battery life, but that ends up helping the environment as well. Users are also more likely to turn off a laptop when it's not in use, adding to the benefit.
Look for EPEAT and ENERGY STAR ratings for the most efficient equipment.

An idle computer consumes as much power as one in use

Establish a policy to turn off all electronics at the end of the work day. Doing this can reduce the power used by electronics by two-thirds.
Using the power-save settings on computers makes it easy for users to save energy. A computer in standby mode uses as little as 10% of the energy as an idle computer.

Recommended Settings
The Climate Savers Computing Initiative recommends these settings:
- Monitor/display sleep: Turn off after 15 minutes or less
- Turn off hard drives/hard disk sleep: 15 minutes or less
- System standby/sleep: After 30 minutes or less
You will save the most by automating these settings for your users. There are a number of ways to do that:
- Use the ITS Computer Power and Patch Management (CPPM) service to manage power-settings for PC and Macintosh desktop and laptop computers.
- Get ENERGY STAR's EZ GPO software tool for managing power save settings using Active Directory without additional software.
It is important to recognize the standby settings may not work for all users. Allow exceptions for those while implementing them for the rest.

Stop vampires

Phantom load (or vampire power) is the power electronics waste just by being plugged in and even applies to power supplies that do not have the device attached.

Request motion sensing power strips from Planet Blue Operations to plug in peripherals so that they automatically stop drawing power when no one is using them
Another option is to search for smart power strips to find other styles of power strips to cut down on phantom load.

Use recycled products

Don't forget to close the recycling loop by using recycled material.

Join the U-M eCycle mail group to get e-mail about equipment no longer needed by a U-M department that you may be able to use. Save money and the environment at the same time.
Buy recycled paper
Find manufacturers that use recycled materials by checking the EPEAT ratings.