How to reduce the amount of power your computer is using
With the energy crisis hitting the UK hard, reducing your company's energy consumption is one way to lower your electricity bill. Below are three things your business can do with its computers to get a little power saving here and there.
Set your monitors to go to sleep after a few minutes.
There is absolutely no reason to have your monitor or monitors permanently turned on; even the latest LCD monitors use a noticeable amount of power. Put the rear of your palm on your display, and you might be surprised by the amount of heat coming from your screen, all wasted energy.
Windows and macOS make it very easy for you to set your monitors to turn off when you have not used your computer for a few minutes. Setting your screens to turn off after 10 minutes of not being used seems to be the ideal amount of time - as you don't want them to turn off when you quickly need to answer the doorbell or grab a quick snack from downstairs. However, if you're going to be away for longer than 10 minutes, there is no need for your monitors to remain turned on.
Set your computer to go to sleep.
While modern hardware is incredibly power efficient if you're not using your computer, there is no reason to leave it powered on when you're not around.
The power settings for both Windows and macOS let you adjust when your computer goes to sleep. Likewise, with your monitors, you probably don't want the computer to go to sleep when you nip off to grab a drink, but if you're going to be away from the computer for more than 20 minutes, you might want to consider setting your computer to go to sleep.
When you set your computer to go to sleep, it doesn't entirely turn off, which means when you return and wobble your mouse, the computer wakes up quickly, and you're back to work in usually less than five seconds.
Turn your computer off at night.
Turning your computer off a night saves more energy than a computer that is left turned on overnight, but it also gives your computer a chance when it is shutting down to install updates. So the following day, you won't get disturbed by Windows or macOS updates wanting to get installed before you can get on with your day.