5 Things You Can Do in 5 Minutes to Reduce Your Power Use – Part 3: Hardware

Part 1 of this series listed the five actions we recommend that you take to reduce the power use of your computer. Part 2 explained in more detail, two cost-saving actions and tells you how to complete those two actions. This post, fills in the details about two more recommendations.

Upfront Cost, but Should Save You Money Within the Year

3.    Order a smart power strip.

Light green: easy individual actions

These types of power strips automatically turn off your peripherals (monitor, speakers, desk lights) when you shut down your computer and generally consume only 1 watt while on. Plug your computer into the main (switching outlet) and then plug your monitor, speakers, printer or other accessories into the other outlets. When you shut down your computer, the peripherals will shut off automatically. These strips also have always on ports for items like a fax machine that would need to remain on after the computer is off.

Dark green: More robust solution for IT departments

Buy a handful and pilot them with a few of your users, including desktop, laptop, and thin-client users. See how they work for you.

4.    Commit to buying Energy Star or EPEAT gold or silver hardware.

Light green: easy individual actions

If you need to acquire new hardware (as opposed to refurbished) EPEAT certifies desktops, laptops, and monitors according to their overall environmental friendliness and rates them on a scale of bronze, silver, or gold. All EPEAT-certified products are also Energy Star compliant. If you are looking for printers, copiers, and multifunction machines, please make sure they are Energy Star compliant and set their power settings as well.

Dark green: More robust solution for IT departments

Commit to buying at least EPEAT silver-rated computers. Strongly consider using a thin-client set up for users with light-weight processor needs. Those might be public access computers, labs, or for clients who use their computers mostly for web browsing, email, office productivity software, and hosted applications.

Read the final post of this series so you can learn how you can further enhance your impact.