With some 1,400 desktop and laptop computers, Melbourne City Council recognised that power wastage from terminals not being switched off at night needed to be addressed.
As a result mid way through 2007, Council installed NightWatchman, a power management solution to reduce its energy consumption. At 8pm every evening Nightwatchman ensures that all machines not currently logged on are switched off. It automatically saves any open documents to a server and closes applications.
“By forcibly powering off as many machines as possible, we average a switch off level of 98 per cent,” said Ashe Potter, Council’s Desktop Services Team Leader.
In addition, Council also uses low power usage computers.
“We asked vendors to supply their greenest, lowest powered units,” Ashe Potter said. “We then physically tested each one supplied before settling on Dell Computers.”
These moves to Green IT have resulted in power consumption being cut by 39 per cent, delivering an estimated savings to Council in annual energy costs of $100,000.
To achieve the six Green Star rating for its award winning office building (CH2), a number of measures relating to energy use had to be met.
The introduction of Nightwatchman and low power computers were instrumental in these levels being achieved.
“We have now started to look at Nightwatchman for switching off printers and multi purpose units, and consolidating servers to further reduce our energy use,” Ashe Potter said.
For further information contact Ashe Potter on (03) 9658 9680.
