British Experts Develop "Green" Software

A team from the University of Liverpool says it's devised a program that automatically shuts down computer systems after usage.

And members estimate it's saving larger organizations the U.S. equivalent of nearly 20-thousand dollars a month in electricity.

The researchers found that universities with PC centers in 24-hour libraries could be losing more than one million hours of unused computer power each month.

Systems experts say new software called "PowerDown" automatically shuts down computers if left unused for half an hour.

Using the University of Liverpool as a test model, the team discovered that 16-hundred (1,600) library-based PCs alone used 20 thousand kilowatts each week unnecessarily - equating to over four thousand dollars in electricity costs.

PowerDown has so far recovered 24 million hours of PC inactivity within the university, say the scientists.

They estimate an average PC left on round-clock but used for only 40 hours a week uses about 17 kilowatts of electricity - of which about 13 is wasted.

That figure doesn't consider other energy usage such as air-conditioning required to remove heat created by active computers.

Source: http://arkansasmatters.com/content/fulltext/news/?cid=194081