Energy Saving

[localzuk]

I have been tasked with reducing our power usage in school and have calculated that turning off 9 of our 11 switches for 8 hours a night, 36 hours a weekend and for 4 weeks during the holidays would save us 2.2% off our bill.

 

Does anyone else do this? I'm also looking at ensuring projectors are switched off at the wall overnight, weekends and holidays as this would save a further 0.6%.

 

What else do people here do?

[Halfmad]

Energystar GPO is handy but getting teachers to turn off computers at the wall and preferably with a master trunking switch is usually best.

 

We don't currently turn off the network but the teachers have been told to turn off projectors etc at the wall each night.

 

Problem is we have teachers who leave their computers on over the summer holiday, fact is they just don't give a damn.

[webman]

No we don't do anything like that.

 

During term-time only, computers boot up at 7am and shutdown at 7pm.

[laserblazer]

I've asked that all curriculum computers be switched right off at the wall after each lesson. This is beyond the capability of teachers. It only happens when the kids are on the ball. I'm amazed that your switches consume so much power. Just goes to show.

[klawd]

Will the 2.2% saving be given back to your budget?

 

All computers, everything, here stays on 24/7, term time.

 

We use the EZ GPO addon so things go into standby mode if not used, but turning things on/off every day is not worth the problems we have had in the past with PCs deciding not to boot up one day for no reason.

 

Any possible saving in power will be outweighed by repair/replacement costs of equipment dying. So In my view, its not worth it, economically speaking.

[witch]

The head here doesn't seem to be concerned about the power bill - even though we are running a deficit budget

- lights don't even get turned off when the teacher leaves the room. The site manager has suggested all sorts of things to save energy but he doesn't see that anything will be done.

I shall mention the savings we could manage on the network

[localzuk]

Will the 2.2% saving be given back to your budget?

 

I don't know - I'm not complaining about budget really... As I don't have anything to buy now really, and have spent about £250k since I started last July (in improvements).

 

All computers, everything, here stays on 24/7, term time.

 

We use the EZ GPO addon so things go into standby mode if not used, but turning things on/off every day is not worth the problems we have had in the past with PCs deciding not to boot up one day for no reason.

 

Any possible saving in power will be outweighed by repair/replacement costs of equipment dying. So In my view, its not worth it, economically speaking.

 

Wow I have to say, that is a poor attitude to take considering the climate change problem we are all going to be facing soon enough - which is pretty universally accepted as the truth now. Put it this way, my total saving plans come to 5.82% (and growing) for the school which works out at 1.15MWh - which is ~5000kg of carbon dioxide being released needlessly if we don't reduce that cost. That is a huge amount of energy, costing a large chunk of money. (About £1300 a year IIRC). Surely £1300 of equipment won't break outside warranty because of switching on and off?

 

Everyone, should be looking at reducing power costs!

[pallen]

A simple turn off the things you aren't using would save a huge amount. Unfortunately, telling someone to do it and them actually doing it are 2 very different things.

 

I'm fairly sure that telling teachers to go round the room turning off computers and the like would fall into one of the 24 tasks they aren't allowed to do

 

We just have computers shut down in the evening and turn on in the morning. I'm still amazed at the amount of people still logged on when the shutdown command is launched. Of course they aren't using the computers, they couldn't be bothered to go and log off.

[enjay]

Our switches stay on 24/7/365 but probably don't account for very much power, as does the server which is obviously a bit more power-hungry. The PCs are turned off overnight but do remain on at the wall (so I can turn them on automatically each morning); projectors are turned off whenever they're not in use.

 

Can I just throw this one a bit wider and suggest that there are savings to be made during the day as well, not just at night. I recently set our monitors and hard disks to turn off after 3 minutes of inactivity, the previous config had screens only after 10 - this small change saves £3-4 per computer per year. Also look at the energy consumption and power-save options on your printers. I was amazed when I ran a power meter on our big colour laser printers - they idle at 100+W (more than a PC and 19" TFT combined) and peak at nearly 1KW when printing!

 

Talk to you Estates Manager about lights too - as well as energy saving lightbulbs, how about swapping all your 6-foot strip lights for 5-foot ones for a 20% reduction in your lighting costs.

 

In tandem with all this, consider your electricity supplier - how about a "green" tariff (but choose carefully as some of these are greenwash marketing cons)?

[localzuk]

Our switches stay on 24/7/365 but probably don't account for very much power

 

You'd be surprised how much they use...

 

The PCs are turned off overnight but do remain on at the wall (so I can turn them on automatically each morning);

 

The average PC will use 3W when completely off but still plugged in - this works out at about 50 kWh a week for 130 PC's - or £5 (not including weekends).

 

Can I just throw this one a bit wider and suggest that there are savings to be made during the day as well, not just at night. I recently set our monitors and hard disks to turn off after 3 minutes of inactivity, the previous config had screens only after 10 - this small change saves £3-4 per computer per year.

 

I'm going to look at getting the machines to shut-down completely after 5 or 10 minutes.

 

Also look at the energy consumption and power-save options on your printers. I was amazed when I ran a power meter on our big colour laser printers - they idle at 100+W (more than a PC and 19" TFT combined) and peak at nearly 1KW when printing!

 

Indeed. Some of our lasers idle at 100W, and our main photocopier uses 1.6kW when in full use...

 

Talk to you Estates Manager about lights too - as well as energy saving lightbulbs, how about swapping all your 6-foot strip lights for 5-foot ones for a 20% reduction in your lighting costs.

 

He's looking into this already, along with reducing the number of radiators in rooms (most rooms have 5 of them!!), having movement sensitive lights in rooms (with an override as well) etc...

 

My goal is 10% reduction across the school, so roughly £3k or so.

[cookie_monster]

We turn off all PC's except office ones at 7 each night but we don't turn them on in the morning that way they aren't turned on untill needed, some rooms aren't used first period so that's 30 x number of rooms power saved for an hour straight away.

 

I've been playing with the Energystar GPO software but haven't got it to work reliably yet has anyone else had any problems setting it up?

 

@ localzuk

 

Just food for thought although i agree we should air on the side of caution the jury really is still out on the man made aspect of climate change.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/06/010615071248.htm

[localzuk]

@ localzuk

 

Just food for thought although i agree we should air on the side of caution the jury really is still out on the man made aspect of climate change.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/06/010615071248.htm

 

Sorry, but one study does not counter the increasing number of studies that say the opposite. But as you say, we should err on the safe side. Reducing our energy usage has the added advantage of reducing fuel consumption and therefore stretching out the supplies we have...

[djm968]

Virtualise the entire Server Infrastructure - a bit drastic but would make a significant impact on the Carbon footprint!

[localzuk]

Virtualise the entire Server Infrastructure - a bit drastic but would make a significant impact on the Carbon footprint!

 

Wouldn't make much difference here. We have 9 servers - 2 of which are low energy things, and are nearly at full capacity. The others all hover around 70% usage. The extra capacity is slowly being used up with more and more server side apps, more users etc...

 

So, we need the number of servers we have.

[djm968]

Wouldn't make much difference here. We have 9 servers - 2 of which are low energy things, and are nearly at full capacity. The others all hover around 70% usage.

 

Lets see 7 servers x 30% idle I make that 2 additional Virtual Servers? or was that "pimms o'clock"

[localzuk]

And as I said, that capacity is likely to be filled over the next few months. Also, one of the servers is an ISA box, so installing other stuff on it is a bad idea, and it is best served as a dedicated unit. Two are NAS boxes. Which leaves 4 which could reasonably be virtualised, all at 30% each. That means we have roughly 1 machine running spare.

 

Also, when planning servers, you should not overload a server, so I would leave some capacity spare anyway.

 

So, as I said - virtualising things would not help at all - we already looked into it.

[sidewinder]

Ive finally got 'permission' to implement a 10pm shutdown on everything - its amazing how much SMT drag their feet over something that will save money

 

Ive been reducing the number of switches in cabinets - some had 2 switches but less than 48 active ports - so trimming them down

 

Need to look into power saving on laser printers

 

Teachers who leave projectors on are finally getting talked to, and all the new literature for teachers stresses how important it is to turn them off

 

Im looking into turning off non essential servers in holidays/overnight but I can only really think of 2 or 3 that could go off. Everything else is better to keep running

[dave.81]

All pc's shut down at 6pm and 11pm every day unless it's the new one's which go into standby which on these acutally use's less power than off clever aren't they. Projectors are turned off over night but reading the manuals most shouldn't be turned off during the day as the recommend that there is at least 40 minutes between off/on.

 

Apart from that everything is on 24/7/365, so switches, servers etc. We are a boarding school which also gives remote access to students so shutting everything down is not an option.

 

And to be honest if i had the time to go around and turn off all the switches i'd be worried as to what i should be getting on with.

 

Have to agree with some of the comments about the amount of money/issue's it causes shutting things off over night. With our older gear/colder areas of the buildings during the winter they are left on over night. Yes it might cost a tiny fraction more over the year but it's a lot cheaper than replacing PSU every week. When i was ordered to turn them off we went through 10 PSU in 2 months add to that time replacing them it's not cost effective to shut those down.

[witch]

 

Teachers who leave projectors on are finally getting talked to, and all the new literature for teachers stresses how important it is to turn them off

 

 

What new literature? - the stuff I have got states that it is better for the projector if it is left on and switching off shortens the life of the bulb

 

I'd be grateful for any info I could use!!

[klawd]

All computers, everything, here stays on 24/7, term time.

 

Wow I have to say, that is a poor attitude to take considering the climate change problem we are all going to be facing soon enough - which is pretty universally accepted as the truth now. Put it this way, my total saving plans come to 5.82% (and growing) for the school which works out at 1.15MWh - which is ~5000kg of carbon dioxide being released needlessly if we don't reduce that cost. That is a huge amount of energy, costing a large chunk of money. (About £1300 a year IIRC). Surely £1300 of equipment won't break outside warranty because of switching on and off?

 

Everyone, should be looking at reducing power costs!

 

I like breathing air as much as the next person, but I dont kid myself that recycling a few cans and switching to low energy lightbulbs is going to somehow reverse climate change. We should be looking for ways to live with what science tells us is an inevitability rather than mess around trying to change something we have little control over.

 

I look at it this way, if the PSU (for example) breaks and the PSU is under warranty, then I either need the HP guy to drive from 100 miles away to fit a new one (nice carbon output there) or they need to send me a replacement PSU, which would have had a carbon cost to be manufactured (+carbon), then the courier needs to deliver the replacement (+carbon), and collect the faulty (+carbon).

 

Swings and roundabouts...

[sidewinder]

 

Teachers who leave projectors on are finally getting talked to, and all the new literature for teachers stresses how important it is to turn them off

 

 

What new literature? - the stuff I have got states that it is better for the projector if it is left on and switching off shortens the life of the bulb

 

I'd be grateful for any info I could use!!

 

Sorry I meant literature that we give them - they get a short booklet on how to do certain things on the network and we've put a large part about IWB's and projectors in there.

 

Ive also added sections about it to documents we have up on pin boards in the staff computer room

 

And finally I am considering printing out a notice to put by each IWB reminding them to turn the thing off...but I can see some of them moaning about that

[enjay]

The average PC will use 3W when completely off but still plugged in - this works out at about 50 kWh a week for 130 PC's - or £5 (not including weekends).

I'll happily spend £5 to save me having to go round all the computers every morning turning them all on (which would cost well over £5 in my salary time, of course). The switches really aren't pulling very much juice at all, but I could look at timer switches in the cabinets I suppose (although most of them are hard-wired, so I couldn't). We do drop the power to the IT Suites over the holidays though, so the PCs and monitors aren't drawing their collective 132W.

 

I'm going to look at getting the machines to shut-down completely after 5 or 10 minutes.

People would complain about the boot-up times at the start of lessons.

 

we don't turn them on in the morning that way they aren't turned on untill needed, some rooms aren't used first period so that's 30 x number of rooms power saved for an hour straight away.

I do agree that it can be very wasteful, as sometimes our IT Suites aren't used until 11am but since we install software updates when the PCs turn on, we can't ask classes to do this, as they can't spare the time to wait for things to install - some of the big ones (Office, SIMS, etc) can mean that the PC takes a long time from power on to logon screen. Therefore we set the PCs to turn on so they're ready for the start of the day (but I do leave it as late as possible to turn them on).

[thopcroft]

I am tackling the energy saving objectives in 2 ways, firstly I have installed ovationinternet.com PC Auto Shutdown software via group policies to all staff and student PC's (564 PC's), student and staff PC's shutdown if idle or logged off at end of the school day, they also attempt another shutdown at 6PM and 9.30PM after night school finishes. This software is on target to save me £16,000 in PC energey costs for the whole year which I can see from the real time reporting package. This software only costs £375 for a 500 PC site license. The second approach is to replace PC's with low energy units like VeryPC broadleaf which has an operating power rating of 40W.

 

My next target is to connect the data projectors to the data network and schedule power shutdowns using the vendors free management software as teachers just refuse to power them off when they leave the classroom.