Leaving PCs on costs millions in electricity bills

If you keep your PC on, when you’re not in the office, thinking no harm will be done, you are wrong, especially if left switched on overnight. A computer uses energy even when it appears to be idle.

A study of British businesses showed that it costs more than £300m a year in extra electricity bills!

1E, a power management firm funded the research, and found that leaving a PC turned on overnight for a year costs £17, multiply that by hundreds of thousands of systems and you get an idea what damage it does to the economy and environment.

In the US, it’s even worse, as half of corporate computers are left on overnight which is costing US firms some $2.8bn a year.

Apparently, it is a ‘standard policy’ in many large corporates that machines are left on to allow software patches and virus updates to be remotely installed while the machines are not in use.

However, amidst this recession, it becomes more important to shut down PCs when not in use. It helps businesses significantly reduce costs. Also, from an environmental perspective, it reduces the dissipation of PC heat, and helps reduce the levels of CO2 and other pollutants from electricity power plants.

Gartner estimates the IT and telecom industry generates 2 per cent of world carbon emissions. PCs and monitors account for 39 per cent of that total.

It’s interesting to note that these figures were actually higher a couple of years ago, which may signal growth in the awareness of employees and corporations regarding this wasteful practice.

Harris Interactive, which polled 2,000 staff members of companies in the UK, carried out similar research two years ago and found that half of British computers were left on overnight. The numbers today are less, so it’s possible there’s more awareness.

Conducting such studies in the Middle East could yield interesting results, especially in the Gulf were a culture of business excess may result in appalling numbers! But, to be honest, I sense a study in Jordan would provide shocking results too, especially in large companies which now employ tens of thousands of Jordanians with PCs at their desks.

Even before you install and turn on a PC, the materials and energy-intense production process to manufacture your unit will have contributed to environmental pollution and climate change. And there’s the growing problem of discarded older machines being dumped and causing ‘high-tech’ pollutants, but that’s another story all together.

For now, let’s each do our bit for the environment, and reduce the electricity bill. Turn off your PCs, I know I will!

zanasser@gmail.com