Capital Regional District
“We accomplished two goals at once: saving money on computer energy use and maintaining the flexibility needed in our computer network to accommodate our IT requirements.”
David Hennigan, Senior Manager, CRD Information Technology & GIS Services, Capital Regional District
Computer power strategy saves $8,000 each year
The recent installation of computer power management software on 540 Capital Regional District computers provides automatic daily shutdown of computers and monitors across the network. The installation will reduce computer energy waste and save the CRD over $8,000 each year, while still allowing the IT department to conduct weekly system upgrades.
“With this installation, we are gaining two benefits: saving money on computer energy use and maintaining the flexibility needed to accommodate the needs of our IT department,” says senior manager David Hennigan.
The challenge: reduce energy use, maintaining system flexibility
The Capital Regional District is the regional government for the 13 municipalities and three electoral areas that are located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. The CRD provides regional governance and services for the entire Capital Region, such as distributing water supply, disposing of sewage and managing garbage and recycling.
Showing community leadership, the CRD recently participated in BC Hydro’s Power Smart Turn It Off Challenge, which lined up municipalities across the province in a contest to see who could conserve the most electricity during a three-month period. The CRD formed a committee to spearhead the energy-saving efforts, and one solution that the committee came up with was to encourage employees to turn off their computers and monitors at the end of each working day.
However, the CRD’s IT department had reservations about this. The department installs updates across the network every Monday evening and was concerned that daily shutdown would compromise their ability to manage the system. An initial investigation of computer power management software showed that most systems either turn all system computers on or turn them all off. This would not work for the CRD.
The solution: flexible computer power management software
In consultation with their BC Hydro key account manager, the CRD did a more intensive investigation of the software options and found a product called Policy Maker, manufactured by AutoProf. Policy Maker allows the IT department to set its own schedule centrally and to program one night each week when the automatic shutdown does not go into effect. Further, the software does not allow users to override the settings, which ensures that the shutdown works throughout the system, maintaining the energy savings.
“This was the only product we found that let us set exactly what we wanted,” says Scott Bennett, Systems Support Analyst with the CRD’s IT group. “It allows us to conduct our upgrades as needed but still get the benefit of energy savings from automatic shutdown the rest of the time.”
With the assistance of incentives through the Power Smart Product Incentive Program, the CRD installed the software on a total of 540 computers across their various facilities.
The benefits: greater flexibility, lower energy bills
Electricity savings
The computer power management software installations are saving almost 173,000 kilowatt hours, enough to power 17 homes each year, and cutting the CRD’s electricity bill by over $8,000 per year. In addition, CRD received $1,620 in incentives from the Product Incentive Program.
Further investment
As a result of the Turn It Off Challenge, the CRD received some 70 suggestions from employees on ways to reduce energy use. Some of these have already been implemented, while others are planned. According to Simon Joslin, Manager, Real Estate & Facility Management, “We’ll use the computer energy savings to reinvest in more energy conservation initiatives in the future.”
Contact BC Hydro
Find out how Power Smart can energize your bottom line. For more information on how your facility can benefit from the installation of energy-efficient technologies through the Product Incentive Program, visit the Product Incentive Program online or call 1 866 522 4713.
Upgrades and incentives
Energy saving opportunities for administrative and commercial facilities
Upgrading to energy-efficient technologies can significantly reduce energy and operating costs – both immediately and for years to come. Under BC Hydro’s Power Smart Product Incentive Program, many energy-efficient products qualify for incentives that can lower paybacks and make projects more attractive.
The following energy-efficient technologies are ideal for building facilities, and all qualify for Product Incentive Program incentives:
- Compact fluorescent lamps, which use 75% less energy than incandescents to produce the same amount of light and last up to 10 times longer. They’re ideal in hard-to-reach places and where lights are left on for long periods of time.
- Energy-saver T8 fluorescent lighting, which are 50% more energy efficient than T12s and virtually eliminate light flickering.
- LED exit signs, which are 90% more energy-efficient than incandescent signs and last up to 25 years.
- Lighting occupancy sensors, which can save up to 70% in energy costs, depending on the room, while extending the life of lighting products and reducing maintenance costs.
- Computer power management software, which can save up to $16 per computer per year depending on current usage.
Last Modified: Jan 29, 2008
