Shut down and switch off

Staff are being encouraged to consider how much energy their computer potentially wastes for the next stage of the Switch & Save campaign.

Office equipment such as PCs, along with heating and lighting, is a major consumer of energy in most office environments.

In an office of 100 PCs, a department could save more than £5,000 per year by switching computers off at night and at the weekends.

Guidance

To help the University save energy and reduce carbon emissions, staff are advised to follow Energy Office guidance.

The Energy Office recommends:

• Setting your PC to switch to standby mode after 20 minutes and your monitor to do the same after 10 minutes (check with your computing officer/support team for College/group guidelines).
• Where applicable, switch off your monitor when away from your desk for prolonged periods.
• Not leaving computers running overnight, at weekends or during holidays unless absolutely necessary.
• Switching off printers, copiers and other computer peripherals at the end of the day.

Staff are also encouraged to activate Wake on LAN for remote access to work-based PCs in Hibernate mode.

Information Services provides guidance on how to do this.

This article was published on May 14, 2012