The average desktop PC wastes nearly half the power delivered to it – which translates into higher energy bills and unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions. Making some simple changes to your computer’s power management settings is an easy and inexpensive way to have a positive impact on the environment. With a few mouse clicks, your computer can be set to automatically go to “sleep” when it’s not in use, saving nearly half a ton of CO2 and over $60 a year in energy costs for the average user.

When enabled, power management places your monitor, hard drive and computer into a low-power “sleep” mode after a period of inactivity. A simple touch of the mouse or keyboard “wakes” the computer in seconds.

Learn how to turn on computer power management >>

Together we can make a difference

By enabling power saving features on their desktop PCs, U.S. college students could collectively make an enormous impact:

• Savings of more than 1.6 billion kilowatt hours per year
  
• Annual savings of more than $150 million in energy costs
  
• 1 million-ton reduction of CO2 emissions from the operation of computers
  
• Equivalent to taking more than 200,000 cars off the road

What can you do? >>

² Based on U.S. Census Bureau estimate of the number of college students, Harris Interactive estimate of the percentage of students that own desktop computers, U.S. Department of Energy estimate of average CO2 per KW/hr, U.S. EPA estimate of average tons of CO2 produced per car, and an average energy cost of $0.0885/KW.