US corporations waste US$2.8bn to power unused PC per year

A new report by the Alliance to Save Energy has found that US corporations now waste about US$2.8 billion in energy costs by not turning off 108 million PCs when they are not in use, thus generating the equivalent environmental impact of 20 million tons of CO2, or the same as having 4 million cars on the road.

According to the report’s findings, companies are wasting about US$26 per desktop per year if employees don’t turn the machine off, or US$260,000 for an organization with 10,000 PCs.

“Today, we’re still finding that each and every day many US workers are unknowingly wasting their organizations’ money through one simple act: leaving their PCs on when they’re not being used, especially overnight and during weekends,” Sumir Karayi, CEO of 1E, vendor of the NightWatchman PC power management solution and co-producer of the report, said.

The report is based on a number of claimed statistics assumptions, including the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for the number of workers, findings by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on PC power consumption at 84 watts per hour, and estimates of 14.5 hours on week days, and 48 hours on weekends of PC idle time.

In addition, the report outlines the usage characteristics of not only US workers, but those in the UK and Germany. In total, the report’s findings, based on findings from a survey by Harris Interactive, estimates that 156 million workers use PCs during work in the three countries.
The report finds that 50% of US workers don’t turn off their PCs, while 28% of staff in the UK and 30% of German workers don’t hit the power off button. As such, corporates in the UK and Germany with 10,000 PCs are found to be wasting 168,000 pounds and 285,000 euros per year, respectively.

“Employees in the UK are the most idealistic – 27% say they power down PCs to help the environment. Germany employees are most conscious of saving their employer’s money, with 18% saying they power down to reduce their company’s electricity bill,” the report said. “US employees say they power down to make sure their PCs work properly and to comply with company policy.” The findings suggest that workers in the US and the UK are not interested in saving their employers money, the report said.

Other findings include the fact that early half of all the respondents say they don’t turn off their PCs at night due to five reasons: ‘takes too long’, ‘I forgot’, ‘to enable overnight software updates from the main server’, ‘it’s company or IT policy to leave it on’, with a very small percentage citing: ‘I access my PC remotely.’

The report claims that if all of the world’s 1 billion PCs were powered down for just one night, it would save enough energy to light up New York City’s Empire State Building – inside and out – for more than 30 years. Meanwhile, the report also highlights the major contribution PCs and monitors have on the overall CO2 emissions of the ICT industry.

“PCs and monitors account for 39% of these emissions, which is equal to a full year of CO2 emissions from approximately 43.9 million cars,” the report said. “Unless we make PCs substantially more energy efficient, this number surely will rise because more people are using PCs.”

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Category: Climate change, Green corporations, Green ICT