LEARN MORE AT
energystar.gov
ENERGY STAR® is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
program helping businesses and individuals fight global
warming through superior energy efficiency.
VERIZON'S MONITOR AND PC POWER MANAGEMENT
INITIATIVE COULD SAVE $7 MILLION ANNUALLY
Windows "sleep" features cut energy costs by $65 per computer annua
Note: The mention of any company name or product does not
constitute endorsement by EPA or by Verizon.
Verizon activated Windows sleep features on about 11,000
PCs in a pilot study conducted at 14 company locations in
2008. Based on the trial, Verizon estimates that a wider
implementation across approximately 185,000 PCs could save
about S/M per year net of project costs1. Because sleeping
PCs arid monitors generate less heat, Verizon anticipates
additional annual energy savings from reduced office air
conditioning loads. By fully activating monitor and computer
power management features on its computers, Verizon could
achieve energy savings equivalent to that needed to light
nearly 88,000 homes annually.
Power management features - including what are commonly
known as "sleep" settings - automatically place monitors
and computers into a low power sleep mode after a pre-set
period of inactivity.3 Touching the mouse or keyboard wakes
up monitors and PCs within seconds, allowing users to
resume work without delay.
Computer power management features don't just save
money: They're good for the
environment. Because saving
energy prevents pollution
associated with generating
electricity, deploying the
features to approximately
185,000 of Verizon's PCs
would prevent more than
252,000 tons of carbon dioxide
emissions - equivalent to
planting 52,000 acres
of trees.2
Monitors First
Changing Windows power management settings in a
corporation the size of Verizon required the use of several
software tools and a staged approach to implementation. The
company began by activating sleep settings on monitors for
its Windows 2000 and XP machines.
As early as 2003, Verizon energy managers were working
with EPA's ENERGY STAR Program to activate Windows
sleep features on PC monitors. At the time, most of Verizon's
computer displays utilized cathode ray tube (CRT) technology,
each burning 60 or more watts of power. In sleep mode, the
same monitors used only 1 to 2 watts of power.
To configure monitors to enter sleep mode after 15 minutes
of inactivity, Verizon deployed EZ GPO, a free software tool
available for download at www.energystar.gov/lowcarbonit.
It's estimated that the energy reduction achieved through
monitor sleep alone saves Verizon more than $5M annually.
Realizing Greater Opportunities for Savings
Looking to build on that success, Verizon
managers recognized that placing inactive
computers into system standby - not just
monitors - would save substantially more
energy. That's because Verizon employees
had to leave their PCs powered on at night
so important software patches and security
updates could be pushed to the machines
while they were not being used. As a result,
the average desktop PC was burning roughly
65 watts of power all night long - about the
same as leaving the lights on all night in
every office and cubicle. System standby, on
'Energy savings estimates are based on the EPA's ENERGY STAR Computer Power Management Savings Calculator, available online at www.
energystar.gov/lowcarbonit. Assumes national average commercial electricity rate of$0.11/kWh.
2Based on EPA estimates.
3A typical Pentium IV computer uses 50 to 70 watts when active and only 2-3 watts in sleep mode (system standby or hibernate). A CRT monitor
uses about 60 watts and a LCD about35 watts. Both use only 1-3 watts in sleep mode.

-------
LEARN MORE AT
energystar.gov
ENERGY STAR® is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
program helping businesses and idividuals fight global
warming through superior energy efficiency.
the other hand, would drop PC power consumption to 1 to
3 watts. PCs automatically entering system standby could
save power during the workday as well, when people left
their offices for meetings or lunch. While laptops consume
less power than desktops - 25 to 35 watts -- system
standby could still cut laptop energy consumption to 1 to 3
watts, a sizable savings.
ENERGY STAR'S free EZGPO
software tool allows IT managers to
activate PC sleep settings: including
system standby and hibernate modes.
However, activating sleep settings
is only half of the challenge - and
arguably the easier half. Ensuring
that sleep settings do not interfere
with the distribution of important
software patches and updates
(e.g., Windows security patches,
antivirus definitions) is the other half of the computer power
management implementation challenge.
Fortunately, there are many ways to patch PCs that "go to
sleep" when inactive. For instance, with a feature called
Wake-on-LAN (WOL) is activated, a network administrator
can wake sleeping machines at any time in order to perform
on-demand software patches or updates. Alternatively,
client computers can be configured to apply software
patches and updates as soon as computers become
available on the network, such as during the user log-in
process. A feature called Windows Task Scheduler can also
wake sleeping computers at a designated time to download
and install updates.
Finding the Right Applications
After reviewing these and other options, Verizon IT
managers decided they needed an integrated power
management and Wake-on-LAN solution that would work
across multiple Windows platforms. Enter PC Powerdown.
PC Powerdown, which leverages Verizon's selected power
management software, offers near real-time visibility and
control of desktop, laptop, and monitor power consumption
Verizon IT managers could see which computers were "live"
on the network, and which computers were in sleep mode
or powered off. By tracking "on-time" and assumptions
about power use for each end point, PC Powerdown
allowed Verizon to accurately estimate PC power use - and
power savings from sleep settings. Because Windows
power settings are user-based, PCs may or may not sleep
properly when no user is logged in.
PC Powerdown allowed IT managers
to set sleep policies effective
independently of a computer's logged
in or logged out state. Finally, PC
Powerdown utilizes Wake-on-LAN
technology to wake PCs from standby
for over-night software patching. In
other words, PC Powerdown could
be programmed to "wake" PCs
from standby mode when a security
patch or software upgrade needed to be delivered to that
machine. Once the patch is delivered and installed, the
machine returns to standby mode.
Working with Verizon's Real Estate group, Chris Maylor,
the project leader for the company, and his team took PC
Powerdown for a "test drive" earlier this year. Working
with deployment groups of about 2,000 to 2,500 PCs, they
"pushed" the software to approximately 11,000 PCs in 14
Verizon locations using their standard software distribution
application. Having decided to deploy PC Powerdown
instead of EZ GPO to manage PC sleep settings, Verizon
used their software distribution application to uninstall
EZ GPO on client PCs, in order to ensure that the two
applications didn't conflict. Maylor's team configured PC
Powerdown to put monitors into standby mode after 15
minutes of inactivity, and PCs into system standby after 30
minutes of inactivity.
As is the case with any large-scale software deployment,
Maylor recalls that the biggest challenge was getting the
PC Powerdown software pushed to and installed on all
11,000 PCs. Fortunately PC Powerdown provides enough
information about end-point (PC) hardware that it was
possible to head-off potential problems. During the initial
"PC Powerdown " is a perfect solution.
It eliminates the power consumption
formerly expended when PCs were left
on overnight so that critical security
patches could be installed,"
-- Chris Maylor, Verizon IT director and
project lead

-------
LEARN MORE AT
energystar.gov
ENERGY STAR® is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
program helping businesses and individuals fight global
warming through superior energy efficiency.
push, 96% of the PCs responded appropriately. Remaining
PCs which did not respond were simply too old to run any
additional software, lacking sufficient memory and/or disk
space.
Another challenge: mapping sleep policies to a large
number of physical locations. This one-time effort will
allow Verizon to qualify for utility sponsored incentive
programs that pay as much as $15 per PC for activating
sleep features for PCs located within the utility's service
area.
"Verizon is the largest single contributor
to the ENERGY STAR Low Carbon IT
Campaign, Their contribution to a
cleaner environment serves as an
example for others to follow - and the
impressive energy savings speaks for
itself"
-- Steve Ryan, ENERGY STAR Low
Carbon IT Campaign Manager
Results
Because PCs are rarely plugged into dedicated power
circuits, isolating the impact of sleeping PCs on energy
bills isn't always straightforward. PC energy consumption
usually shows up on the same electricity bill as energy
used by office appliances, elevators, heating and cooling
systems, and lighting. Seasonal fluctuations and normal
business cycles add to the complexity. "What we do
know is that PC Powerdown reduces the number of total
daily hours that PCs are 'on' from over 23 hours to less
than 16 hours on average, providing 7 hours of additional
energy savings," Verizon's Maylor said. At any given time,
at least 25% of standby-enabled machines are in sleep
mode. When weekends are included, PCs are in standby
an average of 16 to 17 hours per day. By tracking the "on
time" and assumptions about power use for each type of
PC on its networks, PC Powerdown could provide a fairly
accurate estimate of PC power use - and power savings
from sleep settings.
The Future
Verizon plans to continue rolling out PC Powerdown
and computer sleep settings, ultimately deploying the
application to as many as 185,000 computers across the
company.
In the meantime, Verizon continues to experiment with
promising technology including Intel's vl'ro technology,
which can help manage PC power use. A set of features
built into a PC's motherboard and other hardware, vPro
allows remote access to the PC - including monitoring,
maintenance, and management - independent of the state
of the operating system or power state of the PC. In other
words, vPro gives the IT department the ability to power
a PC on or off as long as there is a network connection
and the device is plugged in. This capability eliminates
the dependency on WOL, which requires specific PC and
network configuration.
For More Information
To learn how to activate power management features on
your network, please visit www.eneravstar.aov/lowcarbonit
or contact Steve Ryan, US EPA ENERGY STAR Program:
202-343-9123, ryan.steven@epa.gov.

-------