Take That, Vampire Power!

You’ve heard of vampire power, haven’t you? It sucks electricity from computers and other appliances even when you’re not using them. That wastes energy and costs money. But the County is fighting back and gaining money in return.

How did we manage that? No stakes, sorry. And no garlic, either. New network software allows us to put connected computers and monitors into a low energy consumption state when they’re not in use. The software – in a centralized location - can detect whether there’s been any activity on your desktop and if not, can automatically put your PC into a low energy mode or hibernation.

The savings don’t sound like much power for one computer, but add in another 9,300 computers and monitors and we’re saving about $286,000 per year. Put it another way, the energy savings is the equivalent emissions reduction of taking 870 cars off the road.

As a result, SDG&E presented an energy efficiency rebate check to San Diego County for $139,485 for the County’s Networked PC Power Management Project. In addition, the EPA Energy Star Program recognized the County for its efforts as a participant in the national Low Carbon IT Campaign. The rebate check will go into an energy trust fund and will be used for energy efficiency projects at some of our existing facilities.

“There’s a dual benefit,” said County Energy and Sustainability Manager Peter Livingston. “We save energy and utility costs but we also get the benefit of increasing employees’ productivity by performing software updates more efficiently.”

That means power management at the server level can schedule software downloads at night, even stagger them, so waiting for your computer to download software before you can start working in the morning is a thing of the past. 

While the rebate accounts for about 9,300 desktop computers, the County is actually saving more money and energy than is reflected in the check. The project is being done in phases and eventually 13,500 computers, including laptops, will be included in the project.

Vampire energy being what it is, it took a powerful team to ward off its energy-sucking powers. That team? The Chief Technology Office, our IT provider HP, Community Services Group IT Manager Kim Hatfield and Livingston. Now that’s what’s called taking a bite out of energy waste!