Save money by buying energy efficiently

Good advice on savings

• Use the Purchasing Guidelines
  The Trust’s Purchasing Guidelines are your guide to energy efficient purchasing and operation.
• Choose computers with the Energy Saving Label
  This can reduce the electricity bill with up to EUR 135 over a computer’s lifetime.
• Go for notebook computers
  You can save up to 90% by replacing your desktop computer and old CRT monitor with a notebook version.
• Install power management features
  Set the computer to sleep or standby when you are not using it. You can set up the computer’s power management features yourself to switch from active to sleep or standby.
• Connect an AutoPowerOff
  An AutoPowerOff plug bank switches off all connected peripherals the moment you switch off your computer.

Typical savings

• Change from desktop to notebook computer (monitor not included): Save 50% or more
• Change from desktop with CRT monitor to notebook computer: Save up to 90%
• The best notebook computers use less than half the power of the worst
• Choose a computer with the Energy Saving Label: Save up to EUR 135 over its lifetime

Install power management features and save electricity
Managing the power on your computer optimises your savings by allowing the computer to revert to standby or sleep when you are not using it.

• Standby (light sleep)
  Programs and documents are saved in the computer’s memory (RAM). Standby is faster than sleep. But if you turn off the power to the computer you will have to reboot it, which means that any unsaved data and documents will be lost.
• Sleep/hibernate (deep sleep)
  This takes a little longer than standby but conversely you can power down the computer without any problems.

Power management can:

• Turn off the monitor – both external and notebook.
• Turn off disc drives.
• Put the computer on standby by saving open programs and documents in the computer’s memory (RAM). A computer uses a small amount of power for the memory, but starts up more quickly.
• Set the computer to sleep (hibernate) by saving all open programs on the computer’s disk drive. Using this option, a computer typically uses almost as little power as it takes to shut down the system using the on/off button.
• In Pentium M-processors the power management feature can control how the processor manages performance (clock frequency) as required. This is called speedstep technology.

Operating systems such as Windows and OS X can control both the computer and monitor to ensure that power consumption is low. Read more about activating a computer’s power management features.

Older versions of Windows (98 and 2000) have some problems restarting from sleep or standby mode. To avoid this, users should always make sure that they save all open documents before activating the sleep or standby modes.

Choose a notebook
Advantages

• Low energy consumption
  Save up to 90% by replacing your desktop computer and old CRT monitor with a notebook.
• Indoor environment
  Better indoor environment during hot spells because a notebook computer radiates less heat.
• Greater mobility

Disadvantages

• When you purchase a notebook you get less processing power for your money.
• Less expansion capacity for additional modules (flash cards, extra disk drives, etc.). Usually, you can connect the same modules as stand-alone devices to the computer via the USB and FireWire ports.
• Can be uncomfortable to use for many hours when the keyboard and monitor are not separate. This problem can be solved by having an external keyboard, mouse, flat screen monitor and a notebook docking station which brings the screen up to eye height.

Danish consumers can get advice about working with monitors from the Danish Working Environment Authority. (in Danish)

Example of a notebook docking station