HP Energy and Sustainability

Management

In early 2011, we launched HP Energy and Sustainability Management (ESM), a portfolio of services that help companies manage and optimize energy and other resource use across the enterprise, including their commercial facilities, data centers, operations, and supply chain.

HP helps customers save energy by improving the energy efficiency of our products, and by providing solutions that help customers manage and reduce their energy use.

We've steadily improved our products' energy efficiency since launching our Design for Environment program in 1992, and we are committed to making further progress. In 2009, we set a goal to reduce the energy consumption of our products by 40% from 2005 levels by the end of 2011. We achieved that goal nine months ahead of schedule, and today HP products are on average 50% more energy efficient than they were in 2005.

We consider energy efficiency across our entire portfolio, from the smallest devices to the largest data centers, and across product life cycle from design to end of life. We also make information about the energy use of HP products available to customers. For example, the web-based HP Carbon Footprint Calculator helps customers evaluate the energy use, estimated carbon emissions, and paper and usage costs of HP products. In 2010, we expanded the calculator to cover more than 8,000 HP and non-HP devices. The online calculator receives more than 5,000 visits per month.

Personal computers and devices

We have made substantial progress in reducing the energy use of our computing products. As a result, customers have saved 1.4 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity through 2010 due to improved energy efficiency of our high-volume HP desktop and notebook PC families, relative to 2008.1

Power usage of a typical HP 14" consumer notebook computer*
Pie chart
yellow LCD panel 31%
orange Central processing unit 27%
red Chipset 13%
pink Hard disk drive 11%
dark blue Memory 9%
med blue Wireless LAN 9%
  • * 15.7 watts total

We enable our customers to save even more energy with technologies such as HP Power Assistant. In 2010 alone, we estimate customers could have saved up to 3 billion kWh and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by up to 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by enabling these features, equal to taking almost 300,000 cars off the road for one year.

While ongoing progress is challenging at already high efficiency levels, we continue working to save customers energy. At the end of 2010, we had more than 280 HP PC and display product families with configurations that meet ENERGY STAR® 5.0 specifications, which include a requirement for 85% energy-efficient power supplies.

We have 18 desktop PCs and 48 notebooks that meet the EPEAT Gold® standard. The HP ProBook 4420s and 4421s notebooks are two examples, and they also exceed the ENERGY STAR typical energy consumption (TEC) standards by 37%. The HP t5500 series of thin client computers are the first thin clients worldwide to certify to EPEAT Gold and the entire series is ENERGY STAR qualified, also an industry first. (See the Tech gallery for more information on HP thin clients.)

The HP Compaq 6005 Pro Ultra-slim Desktop PC is another leading example. It has an 87% efficient power supply, and preinstalled HP Power Assistant2 software can measure, record, and report energy use to IT managers.

HP employees making an impact:

Tara Agen

Every day around the world, HP helps its customers save money while reducing their environmental impact. Tara Agen created a program that helped businesses in her community do the same thing. Learn more about Tara.

Imaging and printing

HP empowers customers to make smart printing choices by providing products, services, and tools than can save energy and paper.

All new 2010 inkjet and LaserJet printer families have ENERGY STAR qualified offerings. The HP Officejet Pro 8500 Premier All-in-One is a leading example—it uses half the energy of comparable laser printers.3

We introduced the HP LaserJet Pro P1100 Printer series in 2010—including the HP LaserJet Pro P1102, the most energy-efficient laser printer on the planet.4 It was the industry's first laser printer to feature HP Auto-On/Auto-Off technology, which saves customers up to 66% of operating energy by putting the printer into a mode that uses less than one watt of power when the device isn't in use. HP configures the printers to power down after a set time, which customers can adjust.

HP Instant-on Technology enables a printer to warm up in a matter of seconds from Sleep or even Off mode. HP estimates that for monochrome LaserJet products alone, Instant-on Technology helped customers avoid 1.3 million tonnes of CO2e emissions in 2009.

Saving paper is another important way HP helps customers save energy and reduce environmental impact. According to some estimates, making 1 tonne of paper results in 1.9 tonnes of CO2e emissions.5 HP is enabling a shift to digital commercial printing, helping customers avoid the paper waste typical in traditional analog printing methods in applications ranging from books to advertising posters. (See Life cycle assessment and Enabling a low-carbon economy.)

HP also helps enterprise customers save paper. The HP Eco Solutions printing portfolio includes products and services such as HP Managed Print Services and HP Web Jetadmin, that help large organizations reduce their paper use, energy consumption, and overall environmental impact by improving the efficiency of their printing and imaging environments.

Servers and data centers

Data center energy use is significant and growing, driven partly by an information explosion. In 2009, the size of the digital universe was nearly 800 petabytes of data (one petabyte is a million gigabytes). By 2020, it will grow to 44 times that size.6

As a result, data centers are hitting limits of power and cooling capacity. Customers need to reclaim power and cooling capacity and better manage costs, which requires a more intelligent view of the entire information technology (IT) enterprise including the facilities, servers, storage, and networking.

HP helps customers look at data center energy use holistically, ranging from dynamically controlling server fan speed to optimizing power and cooling systems for the entire facility. We have applied these concepts and technologies in our own data centers such as Wynyard in the UK and those we operate on behalf of customers.

Energy-efficient data center analysis and design

HP Critical Facilities Services provides consulting, design, assurance, and implementation services for current and next generation data centers. We help customers use energy, water, and space more efficiently, considering local climate and power generation characteristics. For example, we conducted an HP Energy Efficiency Analysis of an existing data center in Tempe, Arizona, for Salt River Project, the third-largest public power utility in the United States. The analysis uncovered measures worth an estimated $53,000 in annual savings, resulting in annual energy savings of almost 700,000 kWh and a reduction of an estimated 289 tonnes of CO2e emissions per year. (See our case study  for more information.)

We have extensive capabilities in building design to align with the United States Green Building Council LEED and similar standards worldwide. Our Critical Facilities Services team has designed more than 25 LEED data centers and commercial building projects, and has worked on a task force with the U.S. government and industry to develop the paper Recommendations For Measuring and Reporting Overall Data Center Efficiency .

Modular data centers

HP is leading in the development of innovative modular data center solutions, from design to deployment. In 2010, we introduced HP Flex Data Center (FlexDC), a highly efficient modular data center solution that allows customers to add capacity as needed and reduces energy use related to power and cooling substantially compared with a traditional design. Energy efficiency is paramount in FlexDC design, beginning by selecting equipment with reduced energy consumption, including for partial-load operating conditions.

FlexDC is designed to work with the external environment, obtaining the majority of its cooling by using the local climate to absorb and dissipate the heat generated in the data center. As a result, although a typical one-megawatt data center may use about 25 million liters of water annually for cooling, FlexDC uses no water for cooling in some climates and dramatically reduces water use in others. Although most effective in cool, dry places, this technology performs well in a range of locations.

The HP Performance Optimized Data Center (POD) can be deployed within weeks instead of the months or even years required to design, construct, and install a traditional HP data center and related IT equipment. The HP POD can ship empty or fully integrated with tested IT from an HP factory in as little as six weeks, slashing the time for data center build-out. Available in both 20-foot (6-meter) and 40-foot (12-meter) designs, HP POD is typically 20 to 40% more efficient than a traditional data center.

Energy-efficient infrastructure

HP's Converged Infrastructure integrates facility resources as well as servers, network devices, and storage, allowing facilities and IT managers to work together to save energy. Sharing a common, comprehensive view of data-center power and cooling enables new levels of energy efficiency and cost savings, matching computing provision to customer needs and maximizing equipment utilization.

HP Data Center Smart Grid

HP Data Center Smart Grid is a key element of the HP Converged Infrastructure, designed to maximize energy efficiency from platforms to rack to virtualization to cloud environments. It delivers the most performance per watt, and deploys an energy-aware infrastructure to optimize workload placement.

Key HP Data Center Smart Grid technologies include:

  • HP Thermal Logic Our portfolio of energy-efficiency enhancing technologies embedded throughout our server product lines.
  • Sea of Sensors A network of sensors used to collect, monitor, and communicate thousands of power and cooling measurements across the data center, enabling customers to visualize energy use and make adjustments in real time.
  • HP Intelligent Power Discovery (IPD) The first technology to create an automated, energy-aware network between IT systems and facilities. Combining HP Intelligent Power Distribution Unit, HP Platinum power supplies (rated among the most efficient in the industry with a power efficiency of at least 94%) and HP Insight Control software, IPD tracks new server installation and provides higher precision, control, and automation to power distribution This helps reduce human error and downtime, allowing companies to reclaim wasted power capacity and downtime costs across data centers.
  • HP Insight Management A central management console that allows IT professionals to deploy servers quickly, make power consumption more effective, and conduct effective capacity planning to get more out of infrastructure.

These technologies and capabilities are implemented across our entire line of servers, networking and connectivity equipment, and storage devices.

Servers

HP ProLiant G7 servers include Thermal Logic technology and other innovative features to reduce power consumption dramatically relative to work performed. The HP ProLiant DL360 G7, one of several HP servers that meet the ENERGY STAR standard, can complete over 65 times more operations per watt than 2005 HP models.7

Networking and connectivity

HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric consolidates data and storage connections, eliminating up to 95% of related infrastructure hardware and reducing power consumption by up to 40%. HP Networking technology allows customers to run applications in a switch, reducing the equipment and power needed.

Storage

Storage accounts for an estimated 37% of typical energy use in data centers. Our portfolio of highly efficient solutions helps meet the needs of cloud computing and the era of big data.

The HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA), 3PAR, and P4000 feature virtualization and thin storage technologies, and can reduce capacity requirements by 50%.8 HP StoreOnce innovations eliminate duplication and can cut archive needs by up to 95%.9 Autonomic management and data features reduce overhead by up to 90%,10 and converged storage platforms cut power and cooling requirements by 50% or more.11

Software

HP software products also can help customers identify ways to cut costs and save energy by reducing unneeded computing and storage capacity.

  • HP Performance Center helps customers analyze and validate the performance of applications against business requirements. It simulates resource requirements for new applications and identifies inefficiencies to better help customers avoid unneeded capacity and use energy efficiently.
  • HP TRIM document and records management software helps customers efficiently manage storage requirements. It provides secure storage while helping customers dispose of redundant data that is unnecessarily taking up space and using energy.
  • HP Business Service Automation works in conjunction with data center hardware to dynamically adjust capacity, switching off equipment when it is not needed.
  • HP Integrated Archiving Platform is a secure, highly scalable archive for emails and files. It reduces customers' operational storage requirements and associated energy use by consolidating data into a low-cost central location.
  • ArcSight Logger Universal Log Management compresses files to a 10:1 rate and archives them to a storage area network, reducing required storage space.
  • Utilizing HP "software-as-a-service" (SaaS) decreases power consumption by distributing multiple customers across shared applications and/or infrastructure. By offering remote access to software via the Internet, SaaS also reduces the need for travel by enabling telecommuting and remote IT support. Additionally, accessing SaaS solutions through a browser reduces the need to upgrade to more powerful PCs.
  1. 1 Energy savings calculated by comparing average 2008 HP product ENERGY STAR® TEC (typical energy consumption) value with average 2010 HP product ENERGY STAR TEC value multiplied over 2008 volume.
  2. 2 Power Assistant requires a system with Microsoft Windows.
  3. 3 Cost-per-page (CPP) and energy-savings claims are based, as of June 2008, on the majority of color laser all-in-ones costing less than $600 when using HP Officejet Pro products with high-capacity cartridges. Energy use is also based on the manufacturers' stated power consumption when printing. Test methods may vary.
  4. 4 Energy consumed based on competitive TEC measurement results found at http://www.energystar.gov/ ,
    http://www.eu-energystar.org/ , and manufacturers' published data sheets for single-function mono and color laser printers as of April 2010. Individual product configuration and usage will affect power consumption.
  5. 5 Printing and Writing Papers: Life Cycle Assessment Summary Report, American Forest and Paper Association, January 3, 2011.
  6. 6 IDC: The digital universe decade,
    http://www.emc.com/collateral/demos/microsites/idc-digital-universe/iview.htm .
  7. 7 Compared with an HP ProLiant G4 Server.
  8. 8 Based on documented experiences and business results of HP 3PAR Utility Storage in client deployments.
  9. 9 Based on a 20:1 deduplication ratio.
  10. 10 Based on documented experiences and business results of HP 3PAR Utility Storage in client deployments.
  11. 11 Exchange 2010 Planning and Deployment Analysis, The Tolly Group, February 2010.
Related links
  • HP EcoSolutions Store