When it comes to fast ways to make a big dent in both your greenhouse gas emissions as well as your energy bill, PC power management is one of the easiest actions your company can make. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most overlooked practices: Forrester recently released a study that found only 13 percent of companies have implemented organization wide power management.
PC power management at its most simple level is activating and managing the sleep settings on your fleet of desktops, laptops and monitors (some power management tools can also be used on other electronics, but for simplicity’s sake we’ll focus solely on computers).
If your firm hasn’t yet started a PC power management project, or if you have and haven’t yet seen big savings, then the following 10 tips, in no particular order, will get you on the right track.
1. Screen savers are not power management.
2. PC power management can save you big money.
3. Installing a power management system can be free.
4. PC power management starts saving money right away.
5. There are many different vendors, but the tools are all similar.
6. PC power management is a “set it and forget it” project.
7. Power management works without disturbing end users.
8. Start small, then move big.
9. Executive support is critical to successful PC power management.
10. You can do it yourself, but there’s a catch.