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	Innovation from the chip to the data center

HP integrates energy-saving innovations across the spectrum of our products and services to help customers reduce their energy costs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We focus on improving the efficiency of products that use relatively little energy—such as PCs and printers—because in aggregate they consume large amounts of energy worldwide each day. We also focus on products such as servers and data centers that consume large amounts of energy and whose footprints are growing quickly because of the growth of the Internet and digital content.

Many of our products qualify for ENERGY STAR^®, strict energy-efficiency guidelines set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy, but we do not limit our goals to voluntary standards. In addition, HP offers over a thousand PCs, notebooks, monitors, and printing and imaging products that meet key eco-label programs. These include Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT^™), Germany’s Blue Angel, TCO (Sweden), China’s Energy Conservation Program, Japan’s Green Mark and Korea’s Ecolabel.

See the Performance page for summary data on the energy efficiency of HP products.

Computer chips

Computer chips or processors often dominate the power usage in most computing systems, from handhelds to servers. The emergence of multi-core processors, in which multiple, simpler cores are stacked on one processor, represents a key opportunity to address energy efficiency in the next generation of microprocessors.

• Some HP notebook PCs use Intel SpeedStep®, and all AMD mobile processor-based notebooks use AMD PowerNow! These technologies enable the processor to adjust its speed depending on the application in use and required processing power.
• We use the low-power Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor and a low-power chipset in approximately 67 percent of notebook PCs shipped, reducing overall system heat and power consumption.
• Many HP consumer desktop PCs use Intel SpeedStep and AMD Cool ’n’ Quiet technology, which manage the performance required to optimize power levels.

Printers

Improving the efficiency of printers while they are in standby mode is a leading opportunity to reduce their energy usage. Enabling more efficient use of paper can also decrease the energy usage and GHG emissions associated with the production, transport and disposal of paper.  

• HP LaserJet printers with Instant-on Technology¹ save energy when the machine is in idle mode. From our monochrome LaserJet products alone, the total energy saved from 1993 through 2006 by using Instant-on Technology represents over 5.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) emissions, equivalent to removing 960,000 cars from the road for one year.
  
• Using Universal Print Driver and HP Web Jetadmin to configure printers for duplexing may save HP up to 726 tonnes of paper a year, at an annual savings of $7.7 million.
• HP LaserJet printers and new HP inkjet printers automatically reduce power consumption after a designated period of inactivity, and most require no more than one watt of power in off mode.

Notebook PCs

Notebooks are the fastest-growing category of PCs. Although they are much more energy efficient than desktops, they offer opportunities for improvement.

• All HP business notebook PCs used with an HP Smart AC Adapter are voluntarily compliant with the European Union Code of Conduct on Efficiency of External Power Supplies. As a result, our notebooks’ external power supplies are at least 84 percent efficient and use less than half a watt when plugged into a power outlet and disconnected from the device itself.
• All HP business notebook PCs are delivered with power management enabled. These features save energy by automatically switching the PC into a standby, low-power mode after a period of inactivity. HP business notebook PCs meet the stringent new ENERGY STAR standards. An ENERGY STAR-qualified notebook uses 70 percent less electricity than notebooks without power management features enabled. Based on EPA estimates, the power management features can save up to 84 kWh per notebook PC each year.²
• In mobile products, screens account for a significant portion of total system energy consumption. In the past, most attempts to reduce power have concentrated on turning off the screen when it is not in use or designing screen systems with lower-resolution or smaller displays. The mercury-free HP Illumi-Lite LED displays are thinner, lighter and more energy-efficient, providing up to 90 minutes of increased battery life.³
• New notebook PCs include an ambient light sensor, which will dim the screen in low-light conditions, decreasing the power required from the battery. This provides up to an hour of additional run time in most average office-light conditions.

Desktop PCs and workstations

The configurability of desktop and workstation PCs presents significant design challenges to ensure that basic configurations are energy efficient and also allow for the power needed to drive “fully loaded” configurations. HP design engineers balance these requirements to provide customers with both energy efficiency and performance.

• The HP rp5700 Business Desktop PC, launched in June 2007, is the first product in the industry to receive a gold rating from the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT). In its maximum energy-efficient configuration, and paired with an HP flat panel monitor, the HP rp5700 Business Desktop PC may save customers as much as 80 percent in power consumption compared with previous-generation systems using cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors (see the case study).
• HP power management features on new HP 5000 and HP 7000 series Desktop PCs can save up to 481 kWh or about 240 kg of CO₂e per year. Enabling 24 PCs with these features reduces about the same amount of CO₂e emissions as removing a car from the road.
• HP business desktops were the first in the industry to meet the recently announced ENERGY STAR requirements—months before the new guidelines took effect.
• All HP workstations released after October 2007 meet  the new ENERGY STAR requirements, with standard 80 percent efficient power supplies, compared with 70 percent efficiency in prior HP models.
• HP thin clients⁴ use less energy than standard PCs, offering up to 80 percent savings in power usage.

Displays

The shift from PCs to notebooks and from cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors to flat panel displays saves significant energy. A flat panel requires approximately 60 percent less energy than a CRT to use and also weighs less, which saves energy in transport.

• All HP LCD consumer PC displays are now meet ENERGY STAR requirements and feature low-power active consumption when on. The unique HP LiteSaver utility increases monitor life and saves energy.
• All HP commercial LCD displays meet stringent TCO03 eco-label requirements in the categories of energy, ecology, emissions and ergonomics.

Servers

Fewer servers are sold than other major IT product categories, but servers require relatively large amounts of electricity and run continuously, so efficiency improvements in this area are particularly important.

• HP server virtualization and consolidation technologies produce significant savings in cost, energy, GHG emissions and materials use. Virtualization allows a single physical server to appear as multiple servers to services using it. Consolidation collapses several servers into a more compact space. Both technologies result in a need for fewer but more efficient servers. At HP, this technology reduced server power consumption from 5 million kWh to 1.8 million kWh in one application alone.
• HP ProLiant and Integrity Blade Servers and c-Class BladeSystem enclosures with embedded thermal logic (launched in 2006) reduce energy consumption by 33 percent compared with conventional rack-mounted servers. These servers save energy through innovative power management, monitoring and cooling technologies.
• HP’s new and enhanced disk storage systems and tape drives help customers reduce storage power and cooling costs by as much as 50 percent.
• SURVEYOR is an easy-to-use software utility from HP that enables customers to measure, manage and reduce their network's energy consumption, saving money and lowering the total cost of ownership.
• HP's ProLiant 360 G5 server uses 28 percent less energy than its G4 predecessor, while delivering three times more processing power.

Data centers

In typical data centers, for every watt of computing power required, more than one watt goes into cooling, demonstrating the need to manage both data center and server energy efficiency. The growing computing density in data centers creates challenges in terms of energy availability and reliability, as energy demands can reach grid limitations at peak load.

• HP offers expert, customizable assessment and site-planning services to help customers evaluate their data centers and develop more effective and efficient power and cooling strategies.
• In October 2007, we launched our Dynamic Smart Cooling (DSC) service to help substantially reduce the energy needed for cooling data centers, which can represent 40 percent to 50 percent of their total power needs. DSC uses multiple rack level temperature inputs to adjust cooling to the needs of the servers, rather than continually cooling the data center at maximum capacity regardless of the heat generated. DSC can reduce energy consumption related to cooling by up to 40 percent compared with legacy data centers (depending on the cooling system and power and cooling best practices deployed in the data center). For a 20,000-square-foot data center, this may represent about 480 tonnes of avoided CO₂e emissions per year.

We are consolidating 85 of HP’s data centers worldwide into just six locations in three U.S. cities by the end of 2008, and plan to apply DSC technology in those centers by the end of 2009. We have already achieved 20 percent energy savings compared with legacy data centers at an HP Labs site in Bangalore and expect these gains to rise to 40 percent as the data center is further built out (see the case study).

In February 2008, HP acquired EYP Mission Critical Facilities (MCF), a consulting company specializing in planning, design and operations support for large-scale data centers, with particular expertise in energy efficiency. EYP MCF will enhance our ability to help customers optimize energy efficiency.

See an interview about DSC with Chandrakant Patel, HP Fellow at HP Labs.

	HP Halo Telepresence Solutions make it possible for colleagues to collaborate and interact while avoiding GHG emissions related to travel. Halo takes video conferencing and collaboration to a new level that brings people from across the globe into an environment that looks, sounds and feels as if they are just across the table. On just one project, one HP team improved time-to-market by six months and eliminated 44 international trips. Cumulatively, using Halo on this project saved more than 143 tonnes of CO2e from being released into the atmosphere, the equivalent of removing 26 cars from the road for one year. Halo also includes energy-saving displays and lighting features that result in a 40 percent reduction in energy use when the room is in standby mode.5

¹Instant-on fusing technology allows printers to respond to jobs instantly without using energy to keep the print mechanism constantly warm, producing the first page faster when a printer is coming out of powersave mode (see Performance).
²Calculations based on energy calculator on the EPA website. Use the 8510w as a basis with an active power of 15.7 watts and a sleep power of .56 watts.
³When compared with standard cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) display technology.
⁴A thin client is a device that typically only connects to a network and starts up a dedicated web browser, using a server for processing and storage.
⁵Applies to the latest model studio.