An Energy Diet for Power-Hungry Household PCs
From the New York Times:
For more than a decade, the federal Energy Star program has developed voluntary power-management standards for PCs, and suppliers like Intel and Microsoft have steadily improved the energy efficiency of their chips and software. But Mr. Fanara estimated that less than half of PCs met those standards, in part because more energy-efficient hardware adds slightly to production costs.
“There are large potential savings beyond what Energy Star can do,” he said.
The free software, called Edison, is a consumer version of the PC energy-saving software sold to corporate customers by Verdiem, which is financed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a leading venture capital firm and an aggressive investor in green technologies, and other venture investors.
From Yahoo News:
The Edison software doesn’t completely shut a computer off but rather moves it to a “suspend” state, which uses less energy. Users can also schedule to shut down the screen and hard drive before going into suspend mode.
The tool lets users have work and home settings. It has a read-out of how much electricity you are saving, also translated into reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and dollar savings.
Estimates will vary widely, depending on electricity rates and type of computer, but Verdiem says the average savings is 410 kilowatt hours a year, or $36.50.
The catch?
The sign-up process promotes Verdiem’s power management software for businesses, called Surveyor, which the company says can pay for itself within a few years.
The license for Edison is for one person. It runs on Windows XP or Windows Vista.
Worth a look and try.
