Help Gov’t Conserve Energy

On a single day this summer, the federal government can dramatically slash its energy consumption costs with the flick of a switch. To do so, government needs your help.

On August 27, 2009, government and industry will join together for the second year to make a change for the better with “Power IT Down Day.” On this day, industry and government will commit to switching off personal computers and peripherals when they leave their offices for the evening.

Research estimates that just one person who leaves a computer, monitor and printer on overnight wastes approximately 13 kilowatt-hours (kWh). Apply that data across government’s 1.8 million civilian employees, and this energy waste quickly becomes a very large, very expensive number. Last year, over 2,800 government and industry employees pledged to power down their computers, printers and monitors for the first annual Power IT Down Day – a savings of over 37,000 kWh.

In 2008, according to the Department of Energy, US government agency electricity consumption reached nearly 190 trillion BTUs (over 50 billion kWh). In 2007, the federal government spent $17 billion on energy in buildings and vehicles; half of the energy used in buildings was electricity. Meanwhile, current federal policy under Executive Order 13423 requires all government facilities to reduce energy consumption by three percent per year, or 30 percent by FY 2015.

Power IT Down Day is not just about green technology. It’s a good use of taxpayer dollars to manage the operations costs for one of the biggest ticket items in the federal budget. And you can help drive real change.

To demonstrate the cost-savings of the effort, Green IT leaders — Citrix, HP, Microsoft and Intel—will donate at least $20,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit that helps seriously wounded soldiers returning from war and their families.

By committing to Power IT Down Day on August 27, industry and government will reduce energy consumption and create lasting change.

Please click here, sign up and commit to helping government save energy and money.

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John Sporing

This is a great idea. Although my agnecy actively states that you should not power down your PC each day in order for updates to be installed during the evening. I do turn off the monitor. However, we do not have light switches in our offices, so all the lights are always on or off. Installing motion detectors would certainly pay for themselves very quickly.