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As part of our focus on reducing environmental impacts throughout the product life cycle, HP develops products that use energy efficiently, saving customers money and lowering energy consumption.
In 2005, we created a Product Energy Efficiency Team consisting of experts in customer requirements, legislation and technology from different regions and product groups. The team’s ultimate goal is to increase the energy efficiency of HP products through the energy-saving technologies that HP Labs and others develop. We are fostering greater collaboration between HP Labs and the product design teams to speed the adoption of new and promising technologies. The team is also engaged with industry and governmental groups to promote and contribute to energy saving programs and to drive the development of fair and consistent global standards, measurements and practices.
Product energy saving tips

HP’s product energy record


HP products already achieve high energy efficiency. For example, all of our commercial displays, consumer PCs, business desktop and business notebook PCs meet ENERGY STAR requirements when configured with the Windows™ operating system. In addition, virtually all of our imaging and printing products meet ENERGY STAR requirements. Almost all of our LaserJet products require no more than 1 watt power in OFF mode. All PC and printing and imaging products with an external power supply are compliant with the EU Code of Conduct.

Blade servers
A blade server is a compact, high-density server that has its own CPU and memory but shares networking cables, switches, power and storage with other blade servers in a specially designed enclosure. The servers, the enclosure and all the components of the integrated rack work together seamlessly, increasing efficiency and reducing costs by eliminating many of the overlapping resources often required to run stacks of individual rack servers.

HP introduced a Dynamic Power Saver feature for blade servers in 2005, which further increases energy efficiency. This technology continuously monitors power consumption and places selected power supplies on standby when consumption is low, yet can instantly provide capacity when required. Blade servers operate at up to 90% efficiency compared to a maximum 75% in conventional server power supplies.

HP LaserJet products
Like other toners, HP’s LaserJet toner requires heat from a fuser to adhere properly to paper. HP introduced “instant on fusing” in 1993 in our consumer LaserJet products and in 1997 in our Workgroup LaserJets. This technology saves energy because the fuser heats up quickly and avoids the need to maintain power when the machine is idle. We have introduced more than 160 imaging products with this technology, and continue to improve energy efficiency even as printing speeds have increased.

We estimate that since 1993 these increases in “instant on fusing” energy efficiency have avoided a total of 3.2 million tonnes of CO 2 emissions. This is equivalent to a year’s emissions for approximately 680,000 cars.

Monochrome LaserJet workgroup printer savings from instant-on fusing, 1993-2004


Chart: Monochrome LaserJet workgroup printer savings from instant-on fusing

Challenge: power management features


Many HP products are sold with power management features that can save energy by automatically switching the PC or monitor into a standby, low power mode after a predetermined period of inactivity. Many customers disable these features because they misunderstand their effect, and as a result they use more energy than necessary. We support efforts through industry associations to educate customers about power management features.

We estimate that enabling power management features may save up to 381 kWh for a monitor and 294 kWh for a desktop PC per year 1. This means that for every 12 consumers who enable power management on their monitors and PC, CO 2 emissions equivalent to removing one average automobile from the road will be saved.

Our own experience within HP demonstrates the potential for energy savings from effective power management. HP inspected the settings of 183,000 monitors worldwide and found that almost a third were not set to take advantage of the energy saving features. They were reset to enable energy savings after 20 minutes of inactivity. Virtually no users complained and the change saved 7.8 million kWh of electricity in 2005, equal to more than $600,000 2 in energy costs and more than 4,000 tonnes of CO 2. (For more information about energy saving at HP sites, see Operations [HP USA | English]).

1See http://pmdb.cadmusdev.com/powermanagement/quickCalc.html.
2Assuming an average cost of eight cents/kWh.


Case study: Smart Cooling for data centers

Data centers consume large amounts of energy and generate a lot of heat. HP Labs has found that data center cooling equipment consumes up to one watt for every watt of power used by the computer hardware 3. HP offers a portfolio of energy-saving technologies to manage power in both hardware and cooling equipment.

Smart Cooling, which is already in operation, uses computer modeling and processing demand management to optimize the layout of equipment, decrease cooling demand and control air conditioning. Dynamic Smart Cooling, which is under development, will incorporate distributed sensing and control systems to adapt the air conditioning system to changing conditions.

Smart Cooling is estimated to decrease data center energy consumption by 25%. Dynamic Smart Cooling could double that.

3Cost Model for Planning, Development and Operation of a Data Center, Chandrakant Patel, et. al, HP Laboratories Technical Report. June 9 2005

Case study: Halo conferencing technology

HP has developed video conferencing technology that makes remote meetings more productive while saving time, money and energy otherwise expended on business travel.

Halo Virtual Collaboration System
The Halo Virtual Collaboration System (VCS) simulates a face-to-face meeting. It offers high definition video without speech delay, providing users the impression that they are looking through a window into the meeting room.

The Halo VCS, launched in December 2005 in partnership with DreamWorks, was piloted at 12 HP locations in 2005. There are now 13

studios worldwide in the company. HP’s Imaging and Printing business achieved an 8% reduction in travel in 2005 by using the Halo studios, thereby avoiding 350 tonnes of CO 2 emissions. Use of the rooms has grown by 25% in one year.
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