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Setting computers on sleep mode saves by George Spain Information Services Information Services (IS) soon will implement a new policy on the 6,000-plus LYNX workstations it manages. It is expected to reduce energy consumption and result in a $225,000 annual savings, according to Kurt Nendorf, director of IS for the Office of the CIO.   A global setting on all LYNX workstations will send computer monitors into a sleep mode after 20 minutes of inactivity. The computer can be reactivated by a flick of the mouse or a touch of the keyboard. This sleep mode will decrease the monitor’s power consumption from 34 watts to just 1.1 watt. Power consumption on computers’ hard drives will be reduced from 70 to 1.4 watts when in sleep mode, according to Nendorf.   Nendorf was quoting figures produced by Ken Bowman, manager of the Desktop Services Team of IS. Bowman said he arrived at these figures by using calculations found at the Energy Star Web site http://www.energystar.gov. Roughly, the calculations look like this—5,000 managed workstations at 1.7 cents per kilowatt eventually equals $225,000 per year.   Since Desktop Services manages more than 6,000 LYNX workstations, the figures quoted are conservative estimates of savings.   There are about 10,000 workstations on campus. About 1,000 of these are Apple Macintoshes, that are Energy Star compliant, but not centrally managed. That leaves about 3,000 non-centrally managed workstations. Nendorf said that he hopes the savings incentives will encourage more workstations to join the LYNX managed desktop system.   Bowman said that he would like to see Macintosh owners voluntarily join in the energy saving by setting their individual Macs to coincide with the policy established for LYNX workstations. Macs have an Energy Saver setting under System Preferences. There are two separate settings; one is for the display, the other for the computer itself. That way a computer can complete background tasks without drawing power from the monitor.   While screen savers offer  some pretty pictures, their main purpose is to keep static images from burning in on a monitor. They do not reduce power consumption to a noticeable degree, and image burn-in isn’t a big issue with modern monitors.   Some managed computers called Dedicated Autologs (DALs) fall outside of the policy. These computers are found mostly on hospital floors and clinics and are not assigned to any one person.   It’s not just IS that’s bought into Energy Star management.   “Energy Star has helped us by providing technical information on computer power management,” said Christine von Kolnitz Cooley, sustainability manager in the Department of Finance and Administration. “We will be saving more than 3 million kilowatt hours by using the information we learned from Energy Star. We have 4,500 computers on LYNX. IS folks can help save even more energy by setting all of their computers to use the energy management settings.”   “They can also encour-age their customers to plug all peripherals, such as speakers, into a power strip and then turn that power strip off every day,” she said. “We used an Energy Star calculator to determine the cost-benefit of changing incandescent exit signs to LED. We were able to determine that the payback would be less than one year and our savings would be $58,000 for one of these projects. We changed out 1,215 exit signs based on information provided by this excellent web page.”     Friday, June 1, 2007 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.