Climate Savers Computing Initiative Launches Power Management Workgroup

A nonprofit has gathered technology competitors at the same table to identify, solve and communicate technical barriers to desktop and notebook computer power management deployment.

Climate Savers Computing Initiative, an international nonprofit organization committed to reducing IT-related energy consumption, is working with power management solutions leaders 1E, Faronics, Symantec, and Verdiem to remove obstacles to the adoption of power management in the marketplace.

"Climate Savers Computing makes this kind of collaboration possible, and it is exactly why we started this organization," said Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar at Google, a founding member of the organization along with Intel. "Industry-wide efforts are the most effective way to have an impact on both technology and behavior."

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative Power Management Workgroup's first order of business is addressing specific challenges of sleep state standby (S3) technology reliability. Of the four computer sleep states, S1 through S4, S3 (known by most users as "standby" mode) presents the most obvious opportunity to help organizations build more energy-efficient platforms.

Issues with "waking up" from S3, both perceived and real, have caused low utilization numbers in many company networks, and by developing a resource guide that solves this and other related issues, the workgroup can quickly begin helping companies reduce energy consumption and save money. The guide will instruct users on how to build energy-efficient, power-managed client platforms that will result in a positive user experience.

"The average desktop PC wastes half of the energy it consumes," said Pat Tiernan, executive director of Climate Savers Computing. "By turning on a single computer's energy-saving features you can save up to $75 per year in energy costs and reduce your CO2 emissions by nearly half a ton. By getting these experienced leaders in the same room, we will help clarify how organizations can best adopt power management strategies and quickly stop wasting energy to improve their bottom line."

Climate Savers Computing said that it and the new workgroup are setting their sights on PC power management tactics because companies are losing money-saving opportunities and, at the same time, are needlessly increasing the size of their carbon footprints.

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