> **What Spring Branch Independent School District Did Over Summer
> Vacation: Saved \$230,000 with Computer Power Management**

In 2003, Spring Branch Independent School District (SBISD) took
advantage of scheduled computer maintenance on the district's 7,000 PCs
during summer vacation to implement Windows power management features.
The move led to energy savings of \$230,000 annually (over 3 million
kWh) and delivered environmental benefits equivalent to preventing more
than 2,300 tons of carbon dioxide pollution.

### 

### Power Management 

> SBISD activated often-overlooked "power management" features built in
> the Windows operating system. These features allow both monitors and
> computers (CPU, hard drive, etc.) to enter a low-power sleep mode
> during periods of inactivity. Following the lead of the Environmental
> Protection Agency's (EPA's) ENERGY STAR Million Monitor Drive
> campaign, organizations have widely activated power management on
> computer monitors. However, power management of the computer itself
> has lagged. In fact, EPA estimates that only 5 percent of PCs have
> computer power management (CPM) activated compared to some estimates
> as high as 70 percent for monitor power management (MPM). Placing both
> monitors *and* computers into sleep mode puts SBISD ahead of the curve
> in the United States, but more organizations are sure to follow as
> managers discover this fairly simple way to cut rising energy costs
> associated with computing.
>
> "Spring Branch ISD is to be commended for being the first Texas school
> to activate sleep settings on the CPU. They have now doubled the
> savings usually attained by activating power management on the
> computer monitor only. It took innovative thinking and coordination
> between the energy and IT departments," said Amy Poore of Watt
> Watchers, a non-profit organization that helps Texas schools save
> energy.

### An Enormous Energy Savings Opportunity

> SBISD became interested in CPM following a Watt Watchers presentation
> on the subject. After helping more than 20 school districts activate
> MPM on 100,000 computers across Texas, Watt Watchers had recently
> started to promote CPM as well.
>
> "I was intrigued by the additional savings available through the
> computer. Of course, I had to work on the technical issues with our IT
> staff and educate the end users," said Rebecca Cordeiro, Energy
> Manager of SBISD's Energy and Environmental Management Department.
> "Activating CPM was a low-cost means to reduce energy costs associated
> with office equipment."
>
> "We knew the computers would be challenging. Compared to the monitor,
> the computer itself is definitely more complicated and required
> careful consideration of issues," said Tina Baugh, Local Area Network
> Services Manager in SBISD's Technology Services Department.

### End User Challenges and Solutions

> Like the monitor, a computer awakens in seconds simply by touching the
> keyboard or wiggling the mouse. However, SBISD managers realized that
> PC users unfamiliar with the concept of a computer entering sleep mode
> might mistake a sleeping PC for a system crash and attempt to reboot
> the machine. And since awakened computers require the user to login,
> they were also concerned about annoying or inconveniencing end users.
>
> In order to educate computer users, Ms. Cordeiro launched an end-user
> education campaign aimed at addressing these concerns. SBISD's efforts
> included presentations to end users and the distribution of handouts
> and posters (available free from Watt Watchers and ENERGY STAR). To
> address the inconvenience of a computer that too frequently enters
> sleep mode, the team set CPM to 45 minutes (i.e., the computer enters
> sleep mode after 45 minutes of inactivity). Once informed about the
> energy saving and environmental benefits -- and the ease of waking up
> sleeping computers -- most end user concerns vanished.

### CPM Technical Issues Addressed

> Beyond end user issues, SBISD anticipated technical challenges unique
> to CPM. Specifically, SBISD's challenges included:

-   **Activation of power management across a large organization**. To
    address this potentially arduous task, the Technology Services
    Department activated power management during the scheduled Windows
    and Internet Explorer software updates performed by Local Area
    Network Technicians. During these patch updates, the "monitor shut
    down" feature was set to 15 minutes and "system standby" feature was
    set to 45 minutes.

-   **Working with a wide range of chips and operating systems.** CPM
    works best with Pentium IV chips and Windows 2000 or XP. Like many
    school districts, SBISD operates everything from Pentium 1 chips
    with Windows 98 up to the very latest operating systems and chip
    sets. "We knew that some of the older systems might crash during
    system standby, but a BIOS update substantially reduced the chances
    of that," said Baugh. "Unfortunately, sometimes even the BIOS update
    didn't work on the oldest PCs. We knew from the start that Spring
    Branch ISD would have older computers that would not support CPM.
    Out of 13,000 computers, however, at least 7,000 could take
    advantage of CPM, so it was well worth the effort."

-   **Activating Wake on LAN.** Many organizations have not taken
    advantage of CPM because doing so would require turning on an
    administrative feature called "Wake on LAN" on each machine.
    However, only organizations that routinely push out software patches
    at night need to use Wake on LAN. At these organizations, machines
    are typically left powered 24 hours a day; and the Wake on LAN
    function is needed to wake up sleeping computers in order to perform
    updates. Since SBISD pushes out software patches during normal
    business hours, it did not need to activate Wake on LAN.

### 

### Lessons Learned

Once end user and technical issues were successfully addressed, SBISD
was able to implement a fairly painless way to save energy and money.
Tina Baugh found that making implementation part of normal operating
procedures was the easiest and most efficient way to deliver computer
power management savings to her district. "However, if we had to do it
all over again, we would have used login scripts or a tool to centrally
manage power management," said Ms. Baugh.

> EPA has developed just such a tool. The ENERGY STAR EZ GPO software
> tool uses Group Policy Objects in Microsoft Active Directory to
> activate and manage MPM and CPM. EZ GPO is available for free at
> [www.energystar.gov/powermanagement](http://www.energystar.gov/powermanagement).