Saving energy at the office: Information Technology equipments

Equipment such as computers, printers, scanners and photocopiers have become fairly ubiquitous in our offices. Because they have increased in both number and sophistication, they contribute an increasing amount to the overall electric power consumption. What follows are some simple advices on how to save energy with these devices

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  1. Don’t leave PCs, printers, scanners and photocopiers on overnight. Switch them off at the end of the day.
  2. Don’t switch on appliances unless you are ready to start using them – many people have a habit of switching on their PCs as soon as they arrive at their desk and then not using it until later.
  3. The photocopy machine or the printer need not always be switched on when the first person arrives. Instead, make it a habit to switch on only when needed.
  4. When going for lunch remember to switch off your computer.
  5. Enable automatic power saving features on IT equipment. Don’t use screen savers since they actually cause the computer to consume more power.
  6. Turn down the brightness setting on your monitor. The brightest setting on a monitor consumes twice the power used by the dimmest.
  7. The more applications running, the more power the processor consumes. Therefore, close all unused applications.
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Planning to buy a new computer

TIPS
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If you are planning to buy a new computer, consider the following additional tips.

  1. Try to gather as much information as possible (through the internet for example) on the power consumption of the different computer models available. Make low power consumption an important criterion guiding your choice.
  2. If possible, buy a laptop instead of a desktop. Laptops consume much less power, have same computational capabilities and have seen their prices significantly go down lately.
  3. If you still plan to buy a desktop PC, choose an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screen instead of the old CRT (Cathode Ray Tube). Typical LCD monitors consume at least half less power than an equal size CRT.
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