Analyst Reveals Top Tips For Greener PCs

Analyst group Gartner has released a series of tips aimed at helping curb the approximate 30 percent of worldwide IT energy usage attributable to PCs and peripherals.

In a research note released this week, the analyst claims that although most companies realise that their PC infrastructure could be more efficient, many don’t know how to go about improving matters without disrupting productivity.

The analyst group advises companies to take action now around PCs and peripherals as it’s a relatively easy way to improve the efficiency of internal IT systems and help the whole company think about reducing carbon emissions.

“Organisations can no longer view programmes that improve environmental performance across the PC fleet as optional,” said Stephen Kleynhans, research vice president at Gartner. “Organisations increasingly need to establish a plan that contributes to an overall corporate environmental strategy, without interrupting end users’ operations.”

According to Gartner, basic power management features are available for free on most PCs. “PC configuration management suites increasingly include power management capabilities, while third-party power management point solutions can provide further capabilities,” said Federica Troni, principal research analyst at Gartner.

As well as power management, Gartner identified seven other steps to improving PC energy performance:

• Step 1 — Survey Your Environment: Understanding current energy use is crucial in assessing progress and determining the appropriate metrics, but it can prove challenging as few companies are able to track office facilities’ electricity use. Gartner advises against relying on vendor-provided figures for PC hardware draw and instead advocates the use of a simple power meter. Power meters provide a basic understanding of how much it costs to power PCs and the savings that organisations can accrue if they started managing their power states.

• Step 2 — Create a Policy: Gartner recommends that a policy document start with a statement of organisation intentions and link it to a set of goals and key performance indicators (KPIs), such as increased energy efficiency, highest vendor environmental standards, and the exclusion of specific toxins by a given date. As with other corporate responsibility programmes, the success of environmental programmes are primarily affected by users and their behaviour. Success for a user policy is often a question of balance as being too aggressive can negatively impact the users’ perceptions.

• Step 3 — Set Realistic Goals for Energy Efficiency and Waste Management: Companies often set unrealistic goals for PC energy reduction. A blanket goal of “50 per cent reduction” sounds good but may be unachievable because different parts of an organisation will have different starting points and will be able to implement different practices. It is important to define localised goals for specific target user groups or business units, which contribute to the wider corporate agenda.

• Step 4 — Budget for Tools to Reinforce the Policy: Free tools to manage power settings are available but may not always be effective in all cases. Power management tools can support the enforcement of policies on energy use and reduce energy consumption without compromising security and desktop support. Although power management tools are relatively inexpensive, and often fully recover their costs in energy savings, they should still be budgeted for.

• Step 5 — Establish Reporting and Auditing Mechanisms: Many companies have been disappointed by a lack of impact on their monthly power bills directly attributable to a PC power efficiency programme. However, even when power savings are negligible, the ability to report on emission reductions will become increasingly important. Gartner recommends that organisations purchase a power auditing programme, which is typically included as part of a power management tools package.

• Step 6 — The Right PC for the Right User: Different PCs have very different power consumption levels and equipping users’ systems with the right configuration and capacity can be an important step in reducing electrical usage. Although newer PCs and monitors are becoming increasingly efficient, companies should not use power savings as an excuse to replace systems earlier, but should ensure that when systems are replaced, power management features are implemented as part of the deployment process.

• Step 7 — Disposal: PC disposal is probably the toughest issue to deal with because it can involve additional expense, particularly in the current economic downturn, when markets for recycled materials have crashed. Organisations should carefully balance their environmental principles with the potential costs.

In other green IT news, data centre management specialist Telehouse Europe announced that its new £80 million data centre Telehouse West, will use waste heat from the facility to generate energy for the local London Docklands community.

Telehouse claims it could save up to 1,110 tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum and provide up to nine megawatts of power for the local area.
“By making good use of the waste heat from the facility, we can minimise the environmental impact of Telehouse West and provide a valuable resource to the local community,” said Bob Harris, technical services director of Telehouse Europe.