British computer magazine discovers electricity cost of running computers

March 30, 2005 British computer magazine PC Pro has investigated the electricity costs of running today's computers.

Their investigations showed that an individual could save £250 a year while a medium-sized business could potentially save £5,000 a year by making changes to the way computers and their peripherals are operated.

A CRT monitor uses £150 of electricity over five years; enough to pay for a new low-power LCD monitor. Using a screen saver, rather than turning the monitor off or using many computers' built-in feature to turn monitors off after a period of inactivity, could cost £100 alone in a year.

It was also discovered that turning a single laser printer off overnight and on weekends would save £70 over the life of the printer.

Many others computer users however run 'distributed computing' projects while their computers are idle, such as the '@home' series of projects (including the well-known 'SETI@home').