ePowerSaver - A Computer Power Saving Solution for Your Organization

According to the Energy Information Administration, commercial electricity rates have increased almost 12% since 2005, and at many companies, I.T. is a major contributor to the power bill.

Statistics shown that data centres account for about 2% of the total electricity consumption in the United States, while PCs and office equipments account for another 5%.  Thus, when looking for places to save energy, desktop computers are an obvious and easy target.  Yes, we're talking about your desktop computer.

The US Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) estimates that no more than 10% of all PCs in use by organizations have power management enabled.  To make it worse, computers in most organizations have been left on 24/7 for various justifiable reasons!

Whatever the reason is to keep it on, your desktop computer will consume power.   Our tests and internet researches both shown that an average desktop PC uses roughly 130 watts of power when on idle.   Whilst a LCD monitor average consumes around 30 watts on idle.   For those who are still using CRT monitors, it'll consume around 70 watts of power on idle!   By simply leave the computer on 24/7, we are effectively wasting large amounts of electricity and contributing to greenhouse gases while we are sleeping.

As a matter of fact, over the course of a year around 70% of your computer power bill is paid for weekends and over the nights when your desktop computer is idle, doing nothing.

For various practical reasons, the computer power management features have not been enabled and desktop computers have been leaved on 24/7:

• It might take up to 2 min. to turn computer power back on from power off or hibernation mode; and it's not only inconvenient but also a waste of productivity
• In some organizations, it is required to keep the computer on so IT ops can release service patches, client applications etc.
• Sometimes you simply forget to turn the desktop computer off before going home, every now and then

We see the need to automate computer power management to make our life easier and reduce our greehouse foot prints at the same time.

The Windows and Linux operation system support power management.
For devices on PCI, USB, IEE1394 and PC card buses, they all support the standard hardware interfaces to enable device power management.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could make our computer smart enough to turn itself off when it's not being used and turn itself back on just before it is needed?

Our engineers at the WANG Infonology Systems are listening; and here is our solution to your call - ePowerSaver!   It is a suite of software applications build based on our core component - WISePowerScheduler.

It has been designed as such that it is able to switch computer power level from normal to standby, hibernation; and switch back to normal power level from hibernation and standby.   It can be configured to hibernate computer to save power after you left office for the day; and automatically switch computer power level back to normal level before you come to the office next morning.   Best of all, there is no need to make any change to your computer hardware and configuration.   All you need to to launch this configurable application at start up from login script, or batch file. Alternatively, install it as a Windows Service.   Once launched, it is all automatically managed by a build-in MasterScheduler(Server Version only), DesktopScheduler, and Special Events Scheduler.   Easy, isn't it?

The WISePowerScheduler has following main features:

• Configurable Weekly Schduler, Daily Schduler, Ad Hoc Schduler and Special Event Constraints
• Scheduler for computer monitor power lever control - Off/On/Low Power Mode
• Scheduler for computer power lever control - Hibernation and Resume Power Level
• Scheduler for computer power lever control - Standby and Resume Power Level
• Scheduling the execution of specified programs
• Automatically log current user out at specified time
• Shut down and reboot computerat specified time
• Scheduling to send Wake on LAN request to specified computer
• Computer energy consumption monitoring(working in progress)

The ePowerSaver consists of following components:

• WISePowerScheduler
• Console Application & Demo[free].  It can be download from here
• UI to manage the WISePowerScheduler
• WakeOnLAN Console Application

Let's say an employee works 10 hrs a day in your organization, which means computer will be idle for 14 hrs a day over night.   In one week, computer will be idle for 118 hours:

In one year, a computer will be idle for 6136 hours, which means 70% of the time the computer has been on idle:

If a computer consumes 130 watts of power. Over a year, it consumes 798 KWh:

Let's say the electricity rate is $0.15 KWh, over a year the computer power bill will be around $120:

For an idle LCD, the power bill will be around $28:

If the ePowerSave is used, the save for an average computer over a year will be around $148.

The sum of the greenhouse gas emissions for 798 KWh wasted by a computer is equivalent to:

• 573 Kg(1,263 pounds) of carbon dioxide(CO2) equivalent
• 65.1 gallons of gasoline consumed
• 1.3 barrels of oil consumed
• 14.7 tree seedlings grown for 10 years
• 0.13 acres of pine or fir forests
• recycling 0.2 tons of waste instead of sending it to the landfill
• $148 power bill at rate of $0.15 per KWh

For an organization which hundreds or thousands of computers, the saving will be huge! As for example, if your organization has 1,000 computers, over a year it will be saving you $148,000.

It is not a PR exercise for the organization, but a real cost effective solution which will bring a reasonable amount of saving, not to mentioned the reduced greenhouse footprints.

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