Information Technology (IT) was said to account for 2% of global energy demand, and because a single Personal Computer (PC) running continuously could use in excess of 1 000 kWh/y, South African business could cut costs and associated carbon-dioxide emissions by implementing efficiencies.

Of that 2% of global energy used to power IT, 39% was attributed to PCs and monitors, 23% servers – including cooling, 15% fixed-line telecoms, 9% mobile telecoms, 7% land and office telecom, and 6% printers.

While significant time and resources are dedicated to accelerating ‘green computing’, one of the most effective solutions is to switch off a PC when not in use.

Studies have shown that there are many reasons why people don’t do this, ranging from security, to laziness.

A study into South African market specifics, showed that about 90% of all computers were left on overnight in South African offices. This was significantly higher than the average in the US, which showed that about 50% of computers were left on overnight – the energy costs aligned with this figure was about $2,8-billion a year wasted on powering idle PCs.

Of course the US has some 108-million employees who regularly use a PC to do their jobs - significantly more than in South Africa. However, the 90% of PCs left switched on, meant that there was a big scope for energy savings in this arena.

Technology was viewed as both a culprit in energy use, but also offered opportunities through its application to innovate and become more efficient.

One company making advances in this arena was 1E, which has a product called NightWatchman, which powers down PCs automatically, backs up any open unsaved documents during power down, and reports on energy and cost savings in the computer environment.

The solution provides IT departments with the ability to manage the power state of a device, centrally and remotely, and gives IT and energy managers the ability to quantify savings.

1E founder and CEO Sumir Karayi said that using the product could result in savings of R200 per PC a year, and return on investment reached in one year.

Addressing the second largest IT energy servers, Karayi announced that the company had launched a new product, called NightWatchman server.

This would automatically filter background activity, giving a true picture of useful work and efficiency, and then make recommendations, for example whether to virtualise and power manage a server, or decommission a server.

NightWatchman products were available in South Africa from SustainableIT.