California approves first energy efficiency rules for computers and monitors
15 Dec 2016
California regulators yesterday apporved the first mandatory energy efficiency rules in the US for computers and monitors - devices accounting for 3 per cent of home electric bills and 7 per cent of commercial power costs in the state.
The state Energy Commission said that with full implementation, the industry-backed plan would save consumers $373 million a year and conserve at least as much electricity annually as it took to power all of San Francisco's households.
The final approval came at a meeting of the five-member commission in Sacramento after several years had been spent developing the rules in collaboration with computer makers, consumer activists, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other environmental groups.
The new rules would bring about a reduction of 70,000 tons a year, in greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion for power generation.
The standards would set benchmarks for the overall energy use of machines, focusing on when they were turned on but left inactive, and gave manufacturers flexibility to choose which efficiency measures were employed to meet the standards, an approach that aimed to foster innovation.
The rules had been supported by 40 companies represented by the Information Technology Industry Council, including such Silicon Valley giants as HP Inc and Intel Corp.
Under the new standards, approved by California's Energy Commission, most computers would draw less power while idle. Laptops would see a slight reduction in power draw, since they were already designed to be energy efficient. According to the commission's estimates, 73 per cent of shipping laptops would not need change of any sort.
Only 6 per cent of desktops currently met the commission's standards and on average noncompliant desktops would need to reduce their idle power draw by about 30 per cent by 2019 and by about 50 per cent by 2021, the commission said.
