The Energy Efficiency Encyclopedia – PC Insomnia

We’d like to introduce Verdiem’s new Energy Efficiency Encyclopedia, a resource for people to reference that highlights sustainable technology terminology. Please note that the meaning of these words or phrases may vary depending upon their context.

This week, we’d like to highlight PC Insomnia. PC Insomnia occurs when a PC does not consistently transition to a lower power state due to application nuances, or spurious network, central processing unit (CPU) or disk activity. Some common causes of PC Insomnia include:

• Environment: Numerous services or agents within a PC image of an enterprise may spike the CPU utilization during periods of inactivity causing the Microsoft Windows® Idle Timer to reset.
• Custom Device Drivers: Device drivers not written to the Advanced Configuration & Power Interface (ACPI) specification may not allow the PC to enter lower power states.
• Screen Savers: Some intensive screen savers may require higher CPU utilization causing the Windows® Idle Timer to reset.
• Applications: Terminal emulation software, media players, and some custom-developed applications may not allow the system to enter a lower power state.
• System Configuration: Some PCs may not have their BIOS configured correctly to allow for system standby or the power state known as S3 or Sleep (ACPI specification).

As a result of PC Insomnia, PCs stay on while not in use and subsequently waste energy and result in increased CO2 emissions.

*Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries.

Avoiding rolling blackouts this summer

This weekend marks the unofficial start of summer. And thanks to the warmer weather and associated increases in energy consumption, it’s also the unofficial start of what’s become the annual “brown out” season for businesses and households alike. In fact, some are already predicting this year could bring the highest risk of rolling blackouts in years.

Brown outs, of course, refer to temporary power reductions and outages across a metro area due to electricity demand that exceeds a local utility’s ability to generate enough power.

Summer months typically see the majority of urban brown outs, especially in markets that crank up the air conditioning to escape the summer heat.

Late last month, the California Independent System Operator predicted the risk of electricity blackouts especially in Southern California could be more than triple that of previous years due to a lack of supply to meet expected demand.

Similar conditions, as well as the potential for wildfires and continued drought conditions in the Southeast, could tax our power grids even further.

This year’s summer season, unfortunately, could offer the perfect storm for brown-outs and rolling black-outs:

• 1) Many meteorologists are predicting a warmer than usual summer (thank you, la nina)
• 2) Energy prices (for electricity, not just gas) continue to rise
• 3) Our per-capita summer energy use will increase, as usual, due to A/C usage
• 4) Recession-like conditions will make paying for that increased power consumption even more painful – especially for large enterprises

How can organizations mitigate the impact of these conditions?

The first step is to understand your power consumption habits. Use monitoring tools to know when your own peak demand periods exist, and map that against the largest grouped contributors of energy in your organization. For most large organizations, the largest energy consumer is the PC network (which, according to Gartner, represents 40 percent of an organization’s IT carbon footprint).

When you know your organization’s power consumption patterns, you can take steps to intelligently reduce that volume. For example, two-thirds of the power a typical PC uses is wasted (when the PC is on at full-power but not in use). PC power management software can reduce that power by up to 60 percent.

The power requirement and cost impact is even greater in the summer months, when fully-active PCs have a more than material impact on the temperature within buildings, thereby requiring even higher air conditioning bills (and power requirements).

Some Verdiem customers report that putting PCs into lower power states when they’re not in use not only cuts their PC-related power bill in half, but have reported they also can cut the summer air conditioning bill by 5-15 percent.

Those two reductions alone can have a significant impact on an organization’s summer power requirements. And that will make your utility very, very happy (no wonder more than 30 of them nationwide offer rebates for power reduction initiatives such as SURVEYOR).

Rethinking environmentalism

If you haven’t read it already, be sure to check out the short but powerful cover story in the June issue of Wired. Through a series of brief but powerful critiques of traditional environmental rallying cries, the magazine clarifies and reiterates the single most important thing we can do to mitigate climate change – reduce carbon.

Environmentalism has been around for decades, but many of its key tenets and focus areas might actually be counter-productive to reducing carbon. For example, according to Wired:

• Per kilowatt-hour, a nuclear plant emits just six percent as much carbon as a plant fired by natural gas
• Cooling a house produces 93 percent fewer CO2 emissions than warming a house
• A single family member taking public transportation to work reduces the household’s carbon footprint by 30 percent
• An organic chicken creates 45% more greenhouse gases than a non-organic bird
• Pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer, due to the nickel in the hybrid’s battery

The article’s main premise isn’t that traditional environmental concerns are bad or necessarily wrong in intent, but that their aims pale in comparison to how important carbon reduction is to the preservation of our world.

This article won’t be online for another month, but it’s worth picking up or borrowing a copy of this month’s issue for the quick read.

Tips to Reduce Energy Costs at Work

The economic struggles many organizations are facing today, combined with rising energy costs, means lowering the energy bill is more important now than ever before. To help, we wanted to share some tips on ways to cut costs.

• PC Power Management Software: 60 percent of business computers in the U.S. are left running after hours, costing enterprises billions of dollars each year. Adopting power management software is one easy way to take action now and achieve energy savings.

• Switch PCs off and avoid overuse: IT equipment accounts for around nine percent of all energy consumed by businesses - the third largest source of power for the commercial sector. Putting power management policies in place and ensuring all unused equipment is unplugged are two of the easiest ways to control power consumption.

• Use energy-efficient equipment: The EPA is developing ENERGY STAR specifications for enterprise servers and office equipment. When purchasing new equipment, consider energy-efficient versions that will significantly reduce amounts of CO2 emissions and save money over time.

• Use Compact Fluorescent Lights: Replace burnt out bulbs with ENERGY STAR CFLs that use 75 percent less energy and last six to ten times longer than standard bulbs. Also, incorporate motion sensors into rooms to ensure lights are off when the room isn’t in use.

• Office Environment: Create an optimal energy environment by addressing energy use in other areas such as water and the building. Make sure all building and water systems are working properly and when retrofitting buildings look for good alternatives like energy efficient HVAC cooling systems and low flow toilets.

Announcing SURVEYOR 5.0

Today’s an exciting day at Verdiem! We’ve just announced the launch of version 5.0 of our flagship PC power management software, SURVEYOR.

This release expands the cost and carbon savings possible across your PC network, with additional tools to tackle IT energy management concerns such as reliable patch management, remote access and PC insomnia. The result of these enhancements is centralized management of IT energy waste and a reduction in PC energy consumption by as much as 60 percent. SURVEYOR also offers a fast and easy way to demonstrate social and environmental responsibility through significant energy savings without undergoing a complete energy overhaul.

In conjunction with this launch, we’re also introducing a new version of our WakeUp for SMS product, and a Wake-on-Web product as well – making it easier for IT to centrally manage power settings for PC networks even when your users are working remotely.

For more information, check out http://www.verdiem.com/SURVEYOR5.

Join the Energy Camp wiki

Just got back from a full week @ Interop, which included the full-day Energy Camp on Monday. The growing interest in sustainability and intelligent energy efficiency initiatives at companies big and small across the globe is palpable.

The founders of Energy Camp have created what I think will be a fantastic forum to continue the energy efficiency conversation between formal get-togethers. The wiki already has lots of great content and best practices posted, and traffic (as seen by the tickers at the bottom of each page) is accelerating since Monday (with far more visits than we had Camp attendees - a very good sign!).

Check it out here.

Going Green at Interop

For those of you who weren't able to visit our booth at Interop Vegas this year, I wanted to share with you a decision we made prior to the show. In an effort to live our brand, we decided not to print and distribute the standard set of collateral at the show (thus saving paper, fuel, etc). Instead, we created a small card that included a pointer to our new "Download Zone" on the Verdiem website where we're now housing many of our materials.

Overall, we found the response to this change to be incredibly positive, and will work on continuing this practice where possible in the future.