Reducing Energy Costs - Schedule charge on laptop trolleys

[ITinHull]

Hi Everyone,

 

I've been tasked with putting a range of IT energy saving measures in place for our schools. WOL & Scheduled Shutdown's are already in place but I was looking at scheduling the charge on our laptop trolleys. Is anyone doing this and have any recommendations?

 

Thankfully I managed to stop our FM Team with their recommendation of shutting our AC off in the server room overnight! I can see this being a challenge!

[kmount]

Wireless smart plugs (or old fashioned time plugs) might be a simple answer.

[mavhc]

Step 1 is to measure the wasted energy

[DrBeaker]

We had some trolleys with the built-in charger timer. We set it to charge overnight but people never used it as they never plugged the laptops into the chargers.

 

We simply set it to charge 24/7 in the workplace end to accommodate that but they still hardly plugged them in.

[ITinHull]

Thanks for the replies!

 

We have a lot of trolleys but they don't have the built in timer. I've seen those before.

 

I'll have a look at a timer plug which we can use. My concern is that staff will loose the plug if it's not directly attached and fixed to the power cable from the trolley. I can see them left plugged into the wall socket and the trolley plugged into a different socket. We may need to look at dedicated charging stations for trolleys so that they are charged correctly.

 

We find most trolleys aren't even plugged in too so I guess we have been saving power all along!

 

I guess power saving will have to be a priority for everyone now. Does anyone else have any other plans for saving energy in terms of IT equipment usage?

[FN-GM]

I'll have a look at a timer plug which we can use. My concern is that staff will loose the plug if it's not directly attached and fixed to the power cable from the trolley. I can see them left plugged into the wall socket and the trolley plugged into a different socket. We may need to look at dedicated charging stations for trolleys so that they are charged correctly.

 

I have seen some trolleys have sockets inside them, if yours does you could

 

 

Does anyone else have any other plans for saving energy in terms of IT equipment usage?

 

Laser printers and photocopiers use heaps of electricity on standby - I hear the equivalent to a 100w bulb . Cutting their power overnight and the weekend might be an idea.

 

Does anyone else have any other plans for saving energy in terms of IT equipment usage?

 

Do you have Vmware? You could look it migrating machines to a smaller pool of hosts and powering down servers out of hours. Also if you have physical terminal servers you could schedule startup and shutdown.

Edited September 11, 2022 by FN-GM

[mavhc]

Modern devices don't use much on lowest level standby, just have to make sure they're using that.

 

Get a watt meter, measure things first, no point spending ages/money saving 5W when you could be saving 100W for something else

[PotNoodleTech]

Hi Everyone,

 

I've been tasked with putting a range of IT energy saving measures in place for our schools. WOL & Scheduled Shutdown's are already in place but I was looking at scheduling the charge on our laptop trolleys. Is anyone doing this and have any recommendations?

 

Thankfully I managed to stop our FM Team with their recommendation of shutting our AC off in the server room overnight! I can see this being a challenge!

 

Having done the maths, IT only accounts for under 5% of our electric spend. I've done everything I can to reduce power usage but whenever anyone comes to me to say can we shut the switches/air con down over night in order to save 0.1% off our bill I remind them that they need to address the other 95% out of control usage such as electric heaters in portacabins, kettles and microwaves everywhere, 50 watt non LED tubes x 25 in each classroom, the canteen who use a bazillion watts when they're ovening everything, etc, etc.

 

Basically, IT can't make any meaningful savings anymore - it's up to everyone else in the school.

[mavhc]

And that's 95% without even including the main heating I bet, which is usually 3x the electricity usage.

 

Fix the lighting LED and auto off, that'll save money in a year.

 

Install insulation.

[dhicks]

I'll have a look at a timer plug which we can use.

 

It might be a good idea to have the start times staggered, otherwise you'll have a bunch of devices all start charging in one go, which might be a bit much for your mains to handle.

[DrBeaker]

Having done the maths, IT only accounts for under 5% of our electric spend. I've done everything I can to reduce power usage but whenever anyone comes to me to say can we shut the switches/air con down over night in order to save 0.1% off our bill I remind them that they need to address the other 95% out of control usage such as electric heaters in portacabins, kettles and microwaves everywhere, 50 watt non LED tubes x 25 in each classroom, the canteen who use a bazillion watts when they're ovening everything, etc, etc.

 

Basically, IT can't make any meaningful savings anymore - it's up to everyone else in the school.

 

 

That is an excellent point. To me you've clearly got it in hand, organised and informed than others who should know this stuff it seems.

It might be a good idea to have the start times staggered, otherwise you'll have a bunch of devices all start charging in one go, which might be a bit much for your mains to handle.

 

We had to do the same once with an IT suite in one block. Unless we staggered the times the mains tripped and overloaded.

[NeoNebula]

It sounds interesting. Well, I can suggest you consider investing in smart charging trolleys or smart plugs. These devices can be programmed to charge at specific times, ideally during off-peak hours when electricity rates are lower. This not only reduces energy costs but also helps in managing the charging process more efficiently.

[Aprice]

I'd be interested to know the idle draw of the chargers, I'd be surprised if it was more than a couple of watts per trolley.

 

Main problem we have are them not being connected in the first place, so I wouldn't have any interest in fitting timers or further things to obstruct the process. The number of dead laptops brought to the office everyday is surprising, usually sent straight back to plug back into the trolley.

 

On the building side, I recon I could save thousands if let loose with the BMS. Our intelligent networked lighting (that they didn't connect the network to) stays on all night. There are definite savings I think most schools could make.

[PotNoodleTech]

By the way, anyone thinking that setting a scheduled charge period will same them money - it probably won't as when your are not scheduled charging the devices will slowly lose charge which means when the scheduled charge period starts the devices will need extra charging to get back up to their original charge percentage.

 

I.e it uses the same number of watts to leave a device plugged in using 2 or 3 watts, as it does to leave it unplugged all day and then have to charge it for an hour at 40 watts.

[mavhc]

Also you're assuming the school is on a dual rate tariff, which is unlikely because a) business and b) why would they, no one's doing anything at night

[enjay]

I've just plugged my laptop into an energy monitor; fully charged and sleeping, my laptop pulls 8W, so that's probably only a significant number if you've got a lot of laptop trolleys.

 

Another good place to look is idle time-outs when a computer isn't being used - IT Suites are often not full, staff go to meetings, lunch, home (I'm surprised how many staff lock screen and walk out, leaving their desktop on all night). Also, remind staff about turning projectors off between lessons - literally this morning, we had a teacher contact us pre-8am to say their projector wasn't working. Why did they turn it on over an hour before it would be needed?

[mavhc]

I have all the desktops on 10 mins then sleep.

 

8W seems a lot though

[PotNoodleTech]

I have all the desktops on 10 mins then sleep.

 

8W seems a lot though

 

I think it's about right for "sleeping" which is technically still partly turned on. IF it was actually shut down fully I bet it would be maybe 2-3watts at a guess?

[dhicks]

Also you're assuming the school is on a dual rate tariff, which is unlikely because a) business and b) why would they, no one's doing anything at night

 

I was looking up UPS systems the other week, which lead me on to companies that install PowerWall and similar battery power storage systems in commercial premises. Mentioned was made there of time-of-use surcharges such as TRIAD (TNUoS) and DUoS. I can find this explanatory page:

 

https://powercompare.co.uk/blog/duos-tnuos-charges/

 

If I understand correctly, it would seem that we (as a school with a business account with our electricity provider) might be paying surcharges for usage at various times during the day. It's something I'd need to take some more time to understand properly, though.

 

Regarding how-much-power-do-we-use, I have a bunch of small children and a power monitor handy, I'll see if I can get our school's Eco team to do some power usage measurements and report back.

[enjay]

I think it's about right for "sleeping" which is technically still partly turned on. IF it was actually shut down fully I bet it would be maybe 2-3watts at a guess?

 

I think you're right. Turned on and idling, it pulls 8-14W, rising to 20-30W when I'm using it a bit more, but only 0.5W when the laptop is unplugged, which is presumably the same as connected but off.

[IT_JB]

We are currently piloting an energy monitor system at one of our schools so we can measure the impact of various cost saving practices vs their effort. Originally I was thinking similar to yourself in that there would be some easy wins in terms of usage reduction but once you see the overall usage it does kind of put things into perspective... Here's a graph of our usage since we installed it in July at a 2 form entry primary. We are still trying things and I'm happy to share our results once we are done.

 

The hardware is called Smappee

[enjay]

We are currently piloting an energy monitor system at one of our schools so we can measure the impact of various cost saving practices vs their effort. Originally I was thinking similar to yourself in that there would be some easy wins in terms of usage reduction but once you see the overall usage it does kind of put things into perspective...

 

We do similar here through a company called Energy Sparks https://energysparks.uk/

[NeoNebula]

Well, at my school, some teachers had nothing to do, and they stayed late at work. How do I know? I used to live close to my school, and every time I passed by, I saw the lights on in our classrooms. But I don't think it significantly affected the power consumption.

[mavhc]

We are currently piloting an energy monitor system at one of our schools so we can measure the impact of various cost saving practices vs their effort. Originally I was thinking similar to yourself in that there would be some easy wins in terms of usage reduction but once you see the overall usage it does kind of put things into perspective... Here's a graph of our usage since we installed it in July at a 2 form entry primary. We are still trying things and I'm happy to share our results once we are done.

 

The hardware is called Smappee

[ATTACH=CONFIG]70438[/ATTACH]

 

Was the school being used a lot in the summer holidays then?

 

What does Always On mean?

[PotNoodleTech]

We are currently piloting an energy monitor system at one of our schools so we can measure the impact of various cost saving practices vs their effort. Originally I was thinking similar to yourself in that there would be some easy wins in terms of usage reduction but once you see the overall usage it does kind of put things into perspective... Here's a graph of our usage since we installed it in July at a 2 form entry primary. We are still trying things and I'm happy to share our results once we are done.

 

The hardware is called Smappee

[ATTACH=CONFIG]70438[/ATTACH]

 

That looks good, Ideally you'd want to build up a couple of years worth of data so you can really see the impact of the changes. Would be interested to see your continuing results!

 

From the maths I did a few years ago even a badly optimised IT estate pales into insignificance compared to the amount of energy schools use on Heating, Lighting, Canteen, Cookery rooms, etc. so ICT cost savings as a whole is definitely not worth spending lots of money on as you won't stand a chance to get that money back. Now anything you can do for free - is a win win!