Energy efficient computing - HP Canada - Small and Medium Business

Due to the ever-increasing costs of energy, and a consumer and industry trend toward a "greener" computing equipment, PC manufacturers have focused on building more energy-efficient designs. Today's computing equipment consumes much less power, thanks to systems and components designed to observe activity levels and to ramp-down power consumption as activity levels decrease.

In addition, engineers now focus on building circuits with considerable computing power that require far less energy than earlier designs. This applies to a variety of components, including:


	•	Power supplies: Designed to convert alternating current to direct current as efficiently as possible.

	•	Processors: Designed to spread processing among multiple cores while consuming less energy.

	•	Monitors: Switching from picture tubes to flat-panel displays can cut power needs for display by approximately 60 percent.¹

In addition, older PCs and monitors — especially picture-tube devices — as well as the circuit boards and other peripheral devices they include, are often full of heavy metals, such as lead, cadmium, mercury, tungsten, and other toxic materials. E-waste disposal includes proper recycling of this waste to avoid further pollution of the landfills. Plus, reusing already processed raw materials is less-expensive than mining and refining — or manufacturing — fresh materials.

DfE (designed for the environment) equipment means it's been designed to impose as light an environmental footprint as possible. This equipment:


	•	Includes little or no toxic materials in its makeup.

	•	Is manufactured with industrial processes that also avoid use of toxic materials.

	•	Is carefully designed and structured to consume as little energy as necessary.

Note: HP developed its DfE program in 1992 — well ahead of other manufacturers. The HP DfE program focuses on energy efficiency, design for ease of recycling, and materials innovation.

The take-home point for organizations is that environmental consciousness saves energy, and therefore energy costs. In addition, by following energy efficiency guidelines and making simple purchasing changes, your organization's TCO (total cost of ownership) for office equipment is reduced

Energy-efficient programs

Two key programs come into play when considering the purchase of new computers, peripherals, and other office equipment such as copiers, scanners, and fax machines.

ENERGY STAR

ENERGY STAR is a program designed to help buyers save money while protecting the environment through labeling and education about energy-efficient products and practices. The ENERGY STAR program represents a joint effort between the U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the U.S. DoE (Department of Energy). Equipment with an ENERGY STAR label or logo has met stringent energy efficiency guidelines set by these agencies.

Note: The latest version is ENERGY STAR 4.0, effective as of July 20, 2007. This version uses idle power under the operating system as a metric to earn the ENERGY STAR 4.0 rating and requires an 80-percent-efficient power supply. HP was the first tier 1 PC manufacturer to offer products compliant with ENERGY STAR 4.0 guidelines.

The EPA also offers tools and resources to help individuals, businesses, and institutions plan and undertake projects to reduce energy consumption and improve comfort in the home and the workplace. This includes EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool), which is a system designed to help private and public sectors evaluate, compare, and select desktop computers, notebooks, and monitors based on their environmental attributes and energy consumption profiles.

RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances)

RoHS originates from a directive within the EU (European Community) and took effect on July 1, 2006. It restricts the use of six hazardous materials in the manufacture of electronic and electrical equipment: lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and two brominated flame retardants — PBB (polybrominated biphenyls) and PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ether). Although originally European in scope, RoHS has come to represent a worldwide standard and now commonly appears on equipment labels in many countries.

Note: HP implemented RoHS standards on all business desktops worldwide and in advance of the mandated date.

Although RoHS probably gets the most attention for computer and consumer electronics, it also applies to large and small household appliances, all IT and telecommunication equipment, lighting equipment, and toys, leisure, and sports equipment

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1.	HP Corporate Environmental Message Map-Summary 2/13/07: A typical flat panel display uses little more than half the weight of materials and less than 3% the amount of lead as a conventional CRT screen, and requires approximately 60% less energy to operate.