Verdiem has released Edison, a free energy monitoring application for Windows that lets you actively control your PC's energy consumption.
"PCs are the hidden energy hogs of the home and most users have no idea that they are needlessly throwing away 80 percent of their PC's energy," says Kevin Klustner, Verdiem's President and CEO. "If just 1 percent of all PCs used Edison we could potentially reduce environmental impacts by 7 billion pounds of CO2, which is equal to taking more than a half million cars off the road. By finding ways to embed offsets in our daily life -- even something as simple as downloading software -- we will create permanent reductions in energy use and have a huge impact on our environment and resource sustainability."
While much of the IT industry has focused on data center energy efficiency, the world's more than 1 billion PCs are an unexpected drain of energy and source of carbon emissions. Specifically, says Verdiem, PCs energy consumption correlates to an average of 1,000 lbs of carbon dioxide and worldwide can consume about 506 billion kWh per year -- the equivalent of 70 million cars on the road.
Among Edison's features are:
- Scheduling which lets users identify work and non-work schedules to optimize power schemes based on when the PC is in use or on standby.
- Settings that provide options of desired power savings and settings.
- Estimated Savings Reports which offers information that correlates PC power settings to money, kWh, and CO2 savings.