The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been leaving about 10,000 computers switched on overnight.
In response to a parliamentary question from shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth, minister Meg Munn said that on the assumption that each computer uses 80 watts of power and is left on for 14 idle hours each day, the department has used an estimated four million kilowatt (kw) hours of power each year in this way.
This means the overnight powering of FCO computers in a year has been roughly equivalent to the average annual output of a 1.7Mw wind turbine, or the electricity usage of several hundred homes.
At 12.12p a kw hour, the cost used by the Energy Saving Trust to calculate savings for UK domestic users, the electricity for overnight running would have cost £485,000 annually, although Munn said that power prices vary around the world so a value could not be given.
"It has been our assessment that the risk of lost productivity and the risk to national security that this policy avoids outweighed its cost," said Munn in the answer given on 15 September.
However, in a previous answer to Ainsworth on this subject in June, Munn said that FCO's Future Firecrest IT infrastructure will include low power settings, which use two to five percent of full power after a short period of user inactivity. Installation began in March.
"As explained in my earlier answer, the consumption is expected to fall substantially as old equipment is replaced," said Munn in her September statement. "To date, approximately 3,500 new machines have been installed in offices in the UK. Under current plans all 12,000 machines worldwide should have been replaced by 2009. In addition to this, we will be applying global policies to ensure a reduction in power consumption."
Talkback
Interesting logic here from the government that the way to improve its sustainable approach to IT and the environment in generally is to buy in lots of shiny new boxes - aahhh the lovely shiny things!
While new machines are generally more efficient, they are never efficient enough to off-set the impact of upgrading as the existing kit has paid off much of its carbon debt - while the new machines come bundled with a fat new C02 footprint.
According to the Global Action Plan Report (An Inefficient Truth http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/upload/resource/Full-report.pdf): "A recent study at the United Nations University
inTokyo(51) found that most electrical products consume
around 95 percent of lifecycle fossil fuels when in use; however,
75% of PC fossil fuel consumption has already happened
before the computer is even switched on for the first time.
Furthermore, the study found that the manufacture of one
PC requires about 1.7 tonnes of raw materials and water,
and consumes over ten times the computer’s weight in
fossil fuels."
Obviously equipment has to be upgraded eventually for productivity reasons, and because it is basically clapped out, but it is wrong to assume that buying in newer, supposedly leaner IT is actually the most sustainable approach.
Instead the government should be using its buying power to force vendors to come up with longer lasting, cleaner products that don't need to be refreshed every three years - or when Microsoft decides we need a new OS.
There is absolutely no reason why the majority of computers not in use overnight - more than half the 24 hour day - cannot be shut down by their user/operator at the end of the working day. Excuses and reasons "why not" are very shallow and should be overcome by management to achieve reduction in expenditure. The problem is that a budget is allocated and they will ensure it is all spent, necessary or not, to avoid a reduction of budget the following fiscal year.
And I am certain the old machines have been sold off as job lots at virtually nothing - there is no incentive for assets to be realised at maximum. Just think of all the money being spent providing computers for the deprived when a quick refurbishment of the thousands of the FCO old ones could save again.
It is just waste and an archaic means of funding.