How energy efficient is your computer?
- Image by yum9me via Flickr
Many of us have the desire to cut back on our energy bills, whilst also positively contributing to a greener lifestyle. We often hear many tips which show us how to do this around the home, but these tips don’t often delve into the world of your computer. So apart from turning your computer off when you aren’t using it, how can you save energy while using it?
According to recent reports, scientists in Germany believe they are able to utilise an energy efficient method of data processing, which would reduce the amount of energy being consumed through PCs in the home. This new method was a system dreamt up by researchers from the Goethe University (Frankfurt) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and is supposed to work even for processing large amounts of data. But until something like this makes its way to your PC at home, here are some tips to save on your energy bills.
Power settings
You should be able to change the power settings on your computer to meet your needs, which can help if you often leave your laptop or computer on during the day. Generally you can select a certain amount of minutes until a screensaver comes on, or your computer goes into hibernate mode. The hibernate option is especially good for people who take breaks away from the machine as it reduces the amount of power used while protecting whatever is being used.
Electricity drain
It isn’t just your monitor and computer being off that saves energy; this isn’t exactly easy to implement if you need to use it! Try turning down the brightness down on your screen; just make it at a level which doesn’t cause your eyes to strain. USB devices are also culprits of electricity draining; ensure that you don’t have any drives unnecessarily plugged in.
Surfing the web
It may not be the first thing we think about when surfing the web, but search engines do require a certain amount of energy to perform the search queries. However, there has been a succession of eco-friendly search engines come to life which could be suited to you if you do lots of searches. Blackle is an example of this; it uses dark colours as these are thought to use less power during the search[1].
Once you’ve given your computer the once over, you can use it to check that your energy is coming from cheap gas suppliers and electricity suppliers that care about reducing the cost of your energy, whilst also putting great efforts into seeking and developing green technologies of the present and future.
About the author: Lucille Groutadge writes a number of articles involving energy efficiency, with cheap gas suppliers in mind.
[1] Blackle. (2010). About Blackle. http://www.blackle.com/about/
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