PC Power Reduction Brings Business Savings

As David Tebbutt has highlighted on the blog a little while back there are an increasing number of options to reduce the business electricity consumption of your IT.  A new service from UK-based Modus claims to be able to save a 500 person business as much as £20,000 a year.

Modus has come up with a system called Powerwise that allows power profiles for every PC in a business to be managed efficiently and centrally. 

A standard PC and LCD monitor costs more than £60 a year in electricity to run and uses almost half a tonne of CO2 according to the company.  Financial savings and a reduction in a company’s carbon footprint therefore appear to be feasible.

The system was tested by London-based Bank Leumi.  The bank’s IT manager, Stephen Lang, said:

We wanted the ability to control when our desktops are switched on and off, when we scan for viruses, update software and conduct general clean ups on PCs from a central point.

This type of automation, provided by Powerwise, means that it’s no longer down to employees to remember whether to switch computers and/or monitors off at the end of the day.

In terms of cost for smaller businesses with fewer than 500 computers, Powerwise starts from £10 per PC per annum for a perpetual licence (i.e. updates free, new versions paid for). Modus claims a potential saving of £40 a year.  Worth considering, if only on a trial basis, to see if your business can achieve similar savings.