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“With electricity quickly approaching $2 per watt per year, leaving a computer on can be an expensive proposition.”
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March 30th, 2008 at 6:55 am
Most ATX PC power supplies claim to be 60%-75% efficient, which may not sound too bad, but it’s misleading. Power supplies generally operate at different efficiencies depending on how much power they are drawing at that moment. These manufacturers claims use the efficiency measured while they are drawing power at their most efficient level, which probably won’t reflect how you will be drawing power for your PC.
There is a relatively new 80 Plus certification for power supplies, which requires at least 80% efficiency at different amounts of power draw. See http://80plus.org/ for more info.
Power adapters for peripherals are another area for energy wastage. The older style, heavier power adapters are much less efficient than the newer, lightweight, “switching” power adapters. http://energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=ext_power_supplies.power_supplies_consumers has a list of products that use these newer adapters, and their list is not limited to computer equipment.
I especially applaud d-link (and no, I have no affiliation with them at all), which has started a new line of green consumer products. They have two little gigabit switches that are supposed to reduce power usage by not powering inactive ports, and using less power for shorter network cables. They also have a list of which of their products use Energy Star approved power adapters (not all of their products do).