Rapidly rising energy costs, combined with an extremely volatile energy market, are putting new demands on them while stretching services and budgets to the limit.
For those who are looking for alternative ways to help meet their organization’s energy needs, one promising new technology that has begun to emerge is power management software for PC networks. One of the often-overlooked sources of energy consumption in enterprises today, PC networks offer businesses a unique opportunity to reduce costs by addressing the problem of energy waste by business PCs.
The purpose of this article is to educate executives and managers on the problem of energy waste by PC networks in public and private sector organizations in the US, the emerging technology solutions available to them to address the problem, and the potential benefits of power management software through a real-world
example.
The Growing Problem
There’s no question the PC has become an integral part of business today. From simple word processing to e-mail, accounting and more, PCs have become the heartbeat of any business organization. In fact, more than 71 million computers and monitors are up and running in office settings in the US alone, according to a study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories (LBNL).
In spite of (or despite) their small size, when added together collectively PCs have become enormous consumers of energy in business. According to a 2002 study by Arthur Little (now known as TIAX), IT equipment such as PCs, monitors, and related office tools account for 9% of all energy consumed, and is on its way to becoming the third-largest source of power demand in the commercial sector. This equals about 97 billion-kilowatt hours of electricity annually in the US (Energy Consumption by Office and Telecommunications Equipment in Commercial Buildings; Volume I: Energy Consumption Baseline). In terms of actual cost to business, nonresidential PCs use $8 billion of electricity per year. It is estimated that up to one third of the energy consumed is wasted simply by leaving PCs running when not in use.
While the Windows operating system found on most PCs does come with power management capabilities, LBNL found that over 70% of users disable most settings within 90 days. Even in the situations where power management capabilities are enabled, most are for monitor use only, with only a fraction designed to address power use by the CPUs themselves.
The problem only gets worse in the coming years. In the past decade, computers have become increasingly larger and more voracious consumers of energy. This trend is expected to continue. According to the Energy Information Agency, energy consumption by PC networks is expected to grow at a rate of 4.1% annually through 2025. Overall global electricity demand from computer, office, and network equipment in all sectors will increase from 69 to 125% over current numbers by the year 2021, depending on prevailing social, economic, and political trends (2004 Rand Science and Technology Report).
Software Benefits
For organizations looking to reduce their energy costs, using power management software to eliminate energy waste by their PCs can provide a variety of benefits. These range from simple budgetary to environmental. CPUs and monitors represent the majority of IT energy consumption. Overall, PC energy waste costs over $1.8 billion dollars per year, according to LBNL. On a per-PC basis, wasted energy costs $15–$30 per PC. A facility with 3,000 PCs can save up to $90,000 annually simply by eliminating PC energy waste.
Reducing energy use of PC networks also helps reduce CO2 emissions, which is a leading cause of global warming. According to LBNL, an average PC is responsible for almost 1,000 pounds of CO2 emissions annually. As an example, 15 PCs alone can generate the equivalent CO2 that a typical mid-size car produces in a year. By adding power management software for its PC networks, an organization with 10,000 PCs can reduce its CO2 emissions by 3.2 million lbs yearly, equivalent to permanently removing over 225 cars from America’s roads.
Current Solutions
Technology can be applied to address the problem. In general, the solutions for PC power management fall into three broad categories: user involvement; solutions developed within an organization by its IT department; and commercially available software products. We’ll look here at each category, along with the pros and cons of each.
User Involvement
The simplest possible solution is to get employees involved with energy management of their PCs. Typically, this is done via the settings found in the Advanced Configuration and Power Management standard found in Windows.
With this approach, employees are engaged in actively enabling and managing the power management settings on their individual PCs. Typically, a policy is set by management and IT, which is then communicated to employees along with instructions on how to enable and manage these settings for energy savings.
This approach has several positive features. First, it is inexpensive, because it uses already existing software in the operating system. Second, it is simple to implement, requiring no additional hardware or software outlay.
The user involvement approach is not without its drawbacks. Because the Advanced Configuration and Power Management standard does not measure energy usage, there is no easy way to determine the actual energy savings. Moreover, it is easy to disable the settings and it is difficult to ensure long-term employee compliance. In fact, more than 90% of energy settings are disabled by users within 90 days, according to LBNL. Finally, savings tend to degrade as new equipment is added.
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| Software has been developed specifically for IT managers and administrators. |
Internally Developed IT Solutions
Another option for reducing energy consumption by PC networks is through solutions internally developed by IT/IS. These typically come in the form of log-on scripts that set power management settings.
A key advantage of log-on scripts is that they can’t be changed by the user; thus ensuring user compliance and resulting in a reduction in energy use. Scripts, however, have their own set of drawbacks. Very often, the scripts are not flexible enough to accommodate all the types of hardware and operating systems on a network. Moreover, they tend to be static solutions that don’t take into account the variations in CPU usage amongst users. The result is that they are often either too lenient, in order to accommodate everyone, and thus do not bring much in terms of actual energy savings, or so strict that they actually interfere with employee work habits. And, as is the case with user involvement, scripts do not measure or provide information on actual energy savings.
Commercially Available Energy Management Software
The final way that organizations can address the problem of energy waste on their PC networks is through commercially available software. These software solutions have been developed specifically to provide various levels of power and configuration management to IT managers and administrators. There are a variety of options:
Free software from the EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency has developed its own power management software for PCs that it makes available to interested organizations. Called EZ Save, the software helps reduce energy consumption on individual PCs.
One of its big advantages is that it is free of charge. Unfortunately, it only address energy use by monitors on the network, and not CPUs or other related equipment. Nor does it measure actual energy use or savings, so organizations have to find other methods for monitoring ongoing energy consumption and quantifying results.
Time-specific CPU management software. The next category of commercial product is time-specific CPU management software. This software is designed to shut down a CPU at a specified time or after a specified duration of inactivity. Most of this software comes from non-US developers, such as Night Watchman from London-based 1E Ltd.
This category of software can lead to greater opportunities for energy savings over Windows settings alone or log-on scripts. The software has the additional advantage in that it cannot be disabled by end-users.
On the other hand, these products offer only a partial solution to the whole issue of power management of PC networks. For example, they are not able to force PCs to go into low power states when users step away from a computer during work hours—thus missing potential energy savings opportunities. They don’t offer variable time and day options—meaning that each PC can be set to turn off only one time during the day or night. Finally, these products do not monitor and manage overall energy use by the network.
Variable time and day power management software. The final, most sophisticated, type of third-party software for reducing energy consumption by PC networks is software that provides IT managers with a comprehensive tool for managing PC power states. These products, such as Surveyor from Seattle-based Verdiem Corp., are designed to measure, manage, and monitor energy use network wide. Managed centrally by IT/IS, these products offer the flexibility to adapt to the variability in worker schedules and hardware/operating system combinations found on virtually all computer networks.
Such software offers a number of distinct advantages over the other solutions already discussed. Unlike the other solutions, this type of software can measure and analyze overall energy use by the network, offering organizations the ability to track and change power settings based on real time use by employees. Moreover, power management settings are centrally configured and managed by an IT designated administrator. As such, end users are not able to disable setting once they are established by IT.
The software begins by querying each computer on the LAN to determine hardware and operating system information. Once data is gathered, it enables IT to create power management groups, based on the actual energy-use needs in an organization. For example, a telephone customer support office that operates on evenings and weekends can be set up as a different group from an accounting department that works Monday through Friday only. In addition, it provides for variable level of end-user controls, such as low power states depending on certain criteria, as well as different settings possible by time of day or day of week. It establishes a turn-off schedule.
This type of software is typically more expensive. However, one needs to look at the cost in relationship to the actual energy saved. For a product such as Surveyor, for example, a site license might cost $20 per PC. However, on average, this type of power management software reduces electricity costs by an average of $20 per PC per year. Surveyor, for example, is guaranteed to save at least $10 per PC per year. Calculated against projected savings by reducing energy waste, it’s clear to see that the software can pay for itself in a relatively short period of time. Return on investment is typically 12–18 months from purchase.
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| Products such as Surveyor , from Seattle-based Verdiem Corp., are designed to measure, manage, and monitor energy use networkwide. |
Why Organizations Balk
While it is clear to see that power management software for PC networks offers organizations potential opportunities to reduce energy consumption, there are certain barriers to overcome within some organizations to implementation. These typically are as follows:
Past experiences with early attempts at power management by Windows. In the 1990s, there was an attempt by Microsoft and IBM to introduce a blueprint for energy management through the coordination of low power options in the BIOS of the PC and emerging low power options in Windows. Called Advanced Power Management, it attempted to make PCs more energy efficient by changing the on/off power state paradigm to include multiple power states for the BIOS and computer. Unfortunately, this early attempt created a number of problems for users and IT staff alike. One key problem with this early implementation of power management was lengthy delays when a worker wanted to get back to work on his or her computer. In some cases, conflicts with the computer’s basic input-output system (BIOS) prevented the computer from waking up at all, and required a full reboot of the system. In addition to being frustrating, this delay wasted time and reduced productivity.
Resistance by IT. With their often-stretched budgets, internal IT/IS departments can often be a source of resistance to adding power management software for PCs. Energy use is often considered outside the scope of IT, so it is not given a priority among the other more pressing tasks. Moreover, there may a lack of awareness by IT about the emerging options in this area. Finally, some network administrators want round the clock access to all computers on the network so that they can conduct both planned and emergency maintenance activities, and thus are reluctant to use power management software.
Lack of flexibility in solutions. For many organizations, a lack of flexibility in solutions for managing and reducing energy use by their PCs is a barrier. One size solutions, with no ability to vary them depending on the users or situation, can make power management software for PC networks seem inappropriate for their organizations.
Success Story
A growing number of organizations are joining those that have successfully incorporated power management software for PC networks. To obtain a better idea of what might be possible for your organization, here is an example of how one organization, City University of New York, has successfully deployed power management software
As the nation’s oldest and largest urban university, City University of New York (CUNY) features 19 campuses spread over a wide geographic region. Each campus has its own network, with differing equipment and separate IT staffs. Some networks are modern and centralized, while others are older with networks being independently managed by academic departments. Working with its energy provider, the New York Power Authority (NYPA), CUNY began to investigate the possibilities of deploying power management software for its PC networks across its campuses.
Chartered to find ways for its public sector customers to conserve energy, NYPA took a leadership role in researching the potential of power management software for PC networks to conserve energy. As part of its due diligence, NYPA discovered Verdiem’s Surveyor, which is helping organizations reduce energy costs—saving $15 or more per PC per year. Surveyor allows network administrators to manage PC power settings centrally—when a PC goes into standby mode, for example—so power settings can be synchronized across hundreds or thousands of PCs. As a result of its research and due diligence on the products, NYPA created and presented a proposal to CUNY on how they could save energy using Surveyor.
To simulate the challenges they would encounter in using Surveyor, CUNY created a pilot program using two different campuses—one with a newer, centralized network, and the other with an older one that had evolved over time. At the end of the pilot program, CUNY found it had saved 161 kilowatt-hours per PC, or $16 per PC per year. Multiplied by CUNY’s nearly 30,000 PCs, the cost savings was significant. In addition, the software would reduce CUNY’s CO2 emissions by over 4,000 tons annually.
So far CUNY has installed Surveyor on 14 of its 19 campuses. Actual energy savings thus far are higher than predicted, at 173 kilowatt-hours per PC per year. Projected cost savings are $3 million and a reduction of 22,000 tons of CO2 over five years. CUNY is looking forward to installing Surveyor on its remaining campuses, pending approval from the City of New York.
Incorporating Power Management Practices
In determining whether to add power management software for PC networks to your organization, the following tips can be useful in evaluating its feasibility as well deciding what solution works best for you.
First, start with a rough calculation of current energy use and potential savings. This can include such information as the number of PCs in your organization, estimates of how many are left on overnight or on weekends, and similar data. This can give you an idea of what kind of savings you might be able to incur, as well as to provide the business case for incorporating power management software within your organization.
Next, obtain management buy-in. Energy conservation is typically not part of IT’s mission, so providing senior management with the potential savings from energy management for its PCs and securing their endorsement is often a key step in the process.
Involve IT staff early in the decision-making process. Even though energy conservation is not generally part of IT’s key tasks, to successfully deploy power management software for your organization’s PC networks is going to require their participation and buy-in as well.
Make sure to track and communicate improvements. Employees are increasingly concerned about and aware of the impact their organization have on the environment. Employees typically want to help save energy and are proud when they are aware that their place of work is taking proactive steps to help reduce energy consumption.
In addition, management needs to be continually updated on the cost-savings realized by this investment in power management. For both of these constituencies, implement a system that benchmarks where the organization started from and reports annual savings and improvements over time.
Communicate the power management policy to all employees who will be affected by it. While in an ideal situation power management software works seamlessly in the background, it is important to successfully deployment that employees are aware of the software and the types of settings that will go into effect. Should there be issues initially, employees will be aware and be able to go to IT to streamline and fix problems.
Finally, put administrative responsibility for the software in the hands of an employee with an interest in reducing energy consumption. IT has many demands on its time, and as noted energy conservation is not at the top of the list. Assigning a motivated employee interested in conservation to help administer the program can go a long way to its successful implementation.
Future Directions
Where, then, are we headed in terms of energy and PCs?
The fact is, PCs will bean integral part of business for the foreseeable future. During that time, we can expect that PCs will continue to grow in capabilities as well as in the amount of energy they consume. By eliminating energy waste in their PC networks, businesses do indeed have a “golden” opportunity to conserve energy as well as to impact their bottom line.
KEVIN KLUSTNER is president and chief executive officer of the Verdiem Corp.
DE - September/October 2006
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