CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) -
Ninety cents
may seem like pocket change, but in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools 90 cents can
quickly amount to more than a million dollars in savings.
With CMS Information
Technology and Building Services departments working together, the district was
able to find a way to conserve energy, save money and help fight global
warming.
All it took was a better method to shutting down administrative and
school computers, saving the district 90 cents (63 cents per computer, 27 cents
per monitor) per hour per 30,000 computers.
The effort
led to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognizing CMS in its ENERGY
STAR Low Carbon IT Campaign. According to Energy Star, power
management enables computers and monitors to go into a low-power sleep mode
after a period of inactivity. Power management has the potential to save up to
$50 per computer annually.
CMS saved
approximately $1.35 million in 2011-2012 due to steps taken by the district's
IT department. For several years the district shut down computers which
provided a savings, but within the last year the approach to saving energy and
money was more aggressive. According to the CMS Director of Data Center
Operations, Susan Manning, last year the district was able to upgrade its
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager
software that produces
power management reports. The free upgrade tracked the usage of computers and
logged when the computer idled.
Originally,
computers would shut down at 9 p.m., but after the CMS Energy Management Team
began to review the reports during this last year IT began to ease the time up
hour by hour. Computers now shut down as early as 6 p.m.
"We have
software that talks to the machine and tells it to shutdown," said Manning.
"Turning off a light when you walk out of an office or shutting down a computer
is a way we can all play a role in saving our community and the world."
Chief
Information Officer Dr. Valerie Truesdale added, "We salute cooperation from
our principals and school teams in helping us aggressively conserve energy and
financial resources by turning on technology when it is needed."
CMS joins the
ranks of leading businesses and organizations that participates in the ENERGY
STAR Low Carbon IT Campaign, including Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Dell
Inc., FOX Entertainment Group Inc., Mircrosoft, OfficeMax, City of Portland
(Oregon) Public Schools and others.
The
district has set a strategic goal of decreasing energy consumption by 20
percent by 2014. As of June 2012, CMS
had a total reduction of 23.3 percent. Last year, the district avoided cost in
excess of $7 million due to energy saving efforts.
Copyright 2013 WBTV. All rights reserved.
