REDUCE OFFICE EQUIPMENT ENERGY BY 70%

[Anonymous]

New Technologies Could Reduce Energy Consumption of Office
Equipment by 70 Percent

TIAX study for DOE identifies energy saving technologies,
explores barriers to adoption, and suggests next steps toward widespread
utilization
TIAX, a leading collaborative product and technology
development firm, today released a comprehensive report on energy consumption by
commercial office and telecommunications equipment in the U.S. The research,
commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), indicates that the
application of new and emerging technologies could reduce the total energy
consumption of office equipment by approximately 70 percent. Approaches that
power down or turn off equipment when they are not in use had the highest energy
saving potential.

The report, “Energy Consumption by Office and
Telecommunications Equipment in Commercial Buildings,” is the second in a
two-part study TIAX has conducted for the DOE. The first study in 2002
established the baseline energy consumption for office and telecommunications
equipment for the year 2000. This second report identifies technologies with
energy savings potential, explores the barriers that prevent their widespread
adoption, and suggests next steps to achieving market penetration and
utilization.

“The rise of the Internet and the widespread adoption of
computers has led to a dramatic increase in energy consumption by office
equipment over the past 20 years,” said Dr. James Brodrick, Technology
Development Manager at DOE in the Building Technologies Program. “This report
demonstrates that a broad range of new technologies have the potential to
significantly reduce the impact of office equipment on electricity demand.”

A team of TIAX researchers, led by Project Manager Dr. Kurt
Roth, analyzed more than 60 technologies that had the potential to reduce energy
costs associated with office products, including PCs, monitors, servers, copy
machines, and printers. From this list, the team chose 11 technologies for
further study based on their initial estimates of market-achievable energy
savings potential, and analyzed each technology for performance benefits,
barriers to adoption, and next steps to widespread utilization.

Since consumers typically purchase office products based on
superior performance, innovative features, and cost, and pay little, if any,
attention to energy consumption, the researchers concluded that the greatest
hurdles to widespread adoption of these technologies are higher costs,
quality/reliability challenges, and inferior product performance. Products
featuring energy-savings technologies must offer superior performance or
identifiable cost savings in order to achieve widespread market adoption, the
reports states.

“There are a number of exciting new and emerging
technologies coming onto the market today — from organic light-emitting diode
(OLED) displays to network software to enable device power-management setting —
that could significantly reduce the energy consumption of our office equipment,”
said Dr. Roth. “The challenge is to find a way to incorporate these technologies
without affecting the features that are most important to consumers in their
office products, such as performance and cost.”

Based on the various barriers and developmental stages of
the 11 technologies identified during the study, Dr. Roth and his team offered a
range of next steps toward successful commercialization for each technology,
including further research and development, demonstration, education, and
marketing conditioning and promotion.

TIAX evaluated the following 11 technologies in greater
detail:

 Chip-level power management

 Cholesteric liquid crystal display (LCD)

 Electronic paper (e-paper)

— Higher efficiency AC/DC power supplies

— Higher efficiency LCD backlighting

— Inkjet copiers and printers

— Microprocessor line width reduction

— Network software to enact power management settings

— Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display

— Reflective display

— Server power management

[Author]

April 8, 2005 at 11:26 AM