Green Power means More Power!

Even the Department of Energy thinks so...
White and bright colors (especially in backgrounds) can use up to 20% more power than black or dark colors.  Lighter colors will tend to use a higher wattage of power (white uses 74W of power), whereas darker colors (such as black) use a lower wattage of power (black uses 59W of power).

Unfortunately, e-mail and word processors tend to use white backgrounds, so your workstation uses considerable power while you are in these programs, which you are using during much of the day.  Because black-on-white is the most familiar (it's just like the newspaper), selecting alternate combinations may not be visually appealing or to some individuals, capable of reading with darker colored backgrounds.

Of course, the ultimate energy saver is to power off your monitor, which will produce complete and immediate savings.  Although screen savers and Energy Star produce automatic reductions, it takes time for the lowest level to be reached.  If you go to a half-hour meeting, there will be no savings for the first five minutes, 20% savings for the next five minutes, 90% savings for the next ten minutes, and 95% savings for the last ten minutes.  Energy Star saves 65% of the monitor's power during the half hour.  Powering off saves 100%.

So if you know you will be away from your desk for a period, turn off your monitor.  When you come back, turn it on again (and remember that it's asleep, so push your mouse!), and it will wake up in 10 seconds.  And this doesn't apply just to your monitor.

Turn off your lights.

At night, turn off your printer, fax machine, coffee maker, or copier.

Every minute that a machine is off saves energy.  (Note that some components, such as your printer, can use a lot of power when they are turned on, so only turn off these machines for extended periods.  Your printer should be powered off only if it will be idle for more than an hour.)

URL: http://www.microtech.doe.gov/EnergyStar/info.htm.

U.S. EPA "Green Power" campaign URL: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower.