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Farmington, ME 04938
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Power Conservation

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Find out with a Kill-A-Watt power meter, now available for loan through the Help Desk’s Equipment Reservations page on eCampus.

Use the Kill-A-Watt to determine how much power (and money) your electronic devices are using. A great way to save!

How It Works [PDF]

How much does it cost to run a computer?  An average desktop computer can consume over

$.50 worth of electricity each day.  It doesn’t seem like much, but multiply that times 365 days, and it’s almost $200 a year.  Laptops are more efficient, but they still add up.

Factor in the 2,500 or so computers we have on campus, and the total cost could run well over $100,000 each year.  If this electricity is produced (as most is) by burning coal, then each computer consumes over 600 lbs of coal and pumps over a ton of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. And a lot of that time, the computers are just sitting there doing nothing.

With a few simple changes in computer settings and usage, we can significantly reduce the amount of power that we consume. Many of the most effective conservation strategies are easy, free, and in your hands.

As a start, we recommend the following three steps for all end users:

  1. Change your computer’s power management settings to minimize consumption. This step alone can cut a computer’s power usage in half without affecting productivity. (For help changing these settings in Windows or Mac operating systems, consult these simple instructions). We recommend the following settings:
    • Turn off monitor/display: 15 minutes or less (don’t bother with a screen saver, which just consumes power for nothing–put the screen to sleep instead)
    • Turn off hard disks: 15 minutes or less
    • System standby: 30 minutes or less
  2. If you’re not going to use the computer for an hour or more, turn it off.Although putting your computer in Standby mode greatly reduces consumption, it still uses power. And don’t stop with the computer: turn off your speakers, printer, scanner, monitor, and other devices until you need them. Finally, because computers and many other devices consume electricity whenever they’re plugged in (even if they’re turned off), either unplug them or connect them through a power strip and turn that off when not in use. This can reduce power consumption another 10%.
  3. Print responsibly. Avoid using personal desktop printers, which are less efficient and less cost-effective than the networked laser printers, like the Imagistics copiers that most departments have already. The Imagistics also allow duplex printing, so you can print on both sides and save paper. (If you’re not sure how to enable duplex printing, consult these instructions.) Even better, use electronic documents whenever possible (send or request a PDF or Word document by e-mail instead of mailing a hard copy), and don’t print electronic documents unless you absolutely need a hard copy.

Some of these suggestions and statistics are adapted from the web site of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a green computing coalition that includes companies such as Google, Intel, Dell, and Microsoft. For additional information and ideas, visit their web site.

While you’re doing that, the Computer Center is working toward the same goals on a campus-wide basis. We have already implemented several cost-effective conservation policies and are investigating others.

For example:

  • We’re using more aggressive power save settings in computer labs. In the summer of 2008, we set lab computers in our building to sleep or shutdown more quickly, and our electricity usage dropped substantially. We plan to deploy these settings in all other computer labs by the summer of 2009.
  • Most new computers we purchase are compliant with Energy Star 4.0, the most recent government energy efficiency guidelines released in 2007.
  • We’re buying fewer desktop computers, which use far more energy than laptops, and we haven’t purchased CRT’s (the big, older TV-type monitors) in years. The desktops we buy are generally smaller and more efficient these days as well.
  • Most of our server computers are now virtual, which means instead of running on their own physical computer, they run as software applications on a shared computer. Our total number of physical servers (which are generally bigger and more power-hungry than desktop computers) is about a third of what it was just a few years ago.
  • We recently started monitoring computer usage, to identify and reduce the number of computers left on when they’re not being used.
  • In addition to recommending specific power management settings, we’re investigating ways to monitor and improve these settings campus-wide over the network.
  • We use videoconferencing instead of traveling to distant meetings whenever possible, and we encourage and help other departments to do the same.

Of course, these steps are part of a larger commitment by the University to conserve resources and reduce environmental impact. For example, UMF is a signatory of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which means we’ve agreed to a climate neutrality plan and specific green standards, such as requiring new construction to be LEED-certified. We also have active campus environmental groups like the Sustainable Campus Coalition and SEA Change.

The Computer Center hopes to contribute to this positive momentum by reducing power consumption and encouraging more efficient use of computer resources.

UMF is a member of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a nonprofit environmental group founded by Google and Intel, and supported by Micorosft, Dell, and other major technology companies.

UMF was the first university in Maine and one of the first in the nation to join this exciting organization.

By becoming a member, UMF has committed to reducing our environmental impact by: