Activating power management features in enterprises

The business case for activating system standby and/or hibernate settings is compelling. Benefits include:

  1. Cutting the electricity used by PCs roughly in half, saving $25–75 per PC annually. Estimate your savings using our online savings calculator Excel.
  2. Reducing office cooling loads, saving an additional $5–10 per PC annually, and as much as $10–25 or more in warm climates
  3. Decreasing peak load demand charges levied by utilities
  4. Enhancing data security by reducing the chance that valuable information is displayed on unattended PCs
  5. Improving user productivity by eliminating the daily wait for computers to boot up
  6. Public recognition for preventing pollution. Join a growing number of IT departments that are implementing sustainable, environmentally friendly Low Carbon IT.

By contrast, the costs associated with activating these settings are minimal. Costs may include:

  1. IT staff time, as care must be taken to ensure that sleeping computers do not interfere with the distribution of administrative software updates. Additionally, older software applications and peripheral devices should be tested for “sleep” compatibility. Even for the largest companies, these precautions rarely take more than a few days of work — and EPA can save you time.
  2. Software solutions. There are lots of ways to activate sleep settings across entire networks of computers, and many are open source. Commercial software packages provide additional flexibility and features, and the energy savings they deliver outweigh their cost.

For help identifying the best way to activate power management in your organization, for detailed technical instructions, and for information about software tools (if needed), visit our implementation resources pages.

Note: computer users requiring 24/7 remote access to their desktops from outside a firewall (via Remote Desktop, for instance) should utilize monitor power management features only, as it may not be possible to remotely “wake” computers from system standby or hibernate mode.

Hundreds of leading organizations have activated power management features on computers. Read success stories that describe how GE, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, North Thurston Public Schools and others are saving as much as $75 per computer annually.