by Angela Miller
Today we’re taking a small step at NCTD:  we are initiating a project to replace 150 CRT monitors with LCD monitors.  I performed a business case assessment on these LCDs and determined that based on energy savings I would have a less than 3 year payback period for these monitors.  The private sector might not see such an advantageous ROI, but our government pricing for the monitors, especially given that we purchased 150 at one time, was extremely preferential and helped bolster the financial analysis.

Based on this project, I’ve now added some energy star and energy demand purchasing requirements to my standard specifications.  Taking this small step will not increase my company’s expenses significantly, but should prevent us from acquiring technology that doesn’t fit in with my architectural statement to purchase lower energy components where possible. 

For example, I previously did not include a specific power requirement as part of my specification for some display panels I purchased for our board room, and unfortunately not including this resulted in a lower bid on plasma panels instead of LCD.  Plasma panels will cost us more in operating costs over time than the LCDs just based on the power draw.  So not including power as a specification in the purchasing process can lead to higher total cost of ownership – a mistake I will not repeat.

Small steps can lead to wiser decisions, cost savings, and greener IT.

Dig deeper on the issues:

I relied on the following sites for analysis in support of this post:

Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Report on Energy Usage