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Verdiem Helps Southern California Schools Find Cash in PCs
August 17, 2004
Poway Unified and Oceanside Unified School Districts join the growing ranks of educational
organizations adding energy-saving software to their PC networks
San Diego, CA—In one of the country’s highest electricity cost regions, the Poway Unified
and Oceanside school districts have discovered a way to squeeze much-needed cash out of the
personal computers used daily by teachers, staff, and students alike. The two districts, which
together serve over 50,000 students, adopted a software program from Verdiem Corporation that
measures and manages the energy consumption of the districts’ PCs. The software provides an
immediate reduction in PC energy consumption and is expected to save $18 to $27 per PC annually,
or up to $240,000 between the two districts.
PCs are voracious consumers of electricity, and their energy use is increasing due to faster processors
and more power-hungry peripherals. According to both the Department of Energy and Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratories, the average PC can waste up to 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity
a year simply by running at full power when no user is present. “Many computers throughout the
district are left on overnight or on weekends,” said Oceanside’s Matt Evans, Director of Technology.
“Verdiem’s software provides global control for the energy saving features already built into
Windows. The software works well and hasn’t caused any conflicts.”
SURVEYOR, Verdiem’s signature product, is a software program that
allows computer network administrators to easily synchronize PC power settings across thousands
of PCs from one central location, while adding new flexibility and control to existing PC power
options. SURVEYOR can shut down PCs or put them into low-power mode based on flexible schedules.
“SURVEYOR was developed because every year organizations in the U.S. waste nearly $2 billion of
electricity by leaving computers running when no one is using them,” said Steven Sperry, Verdiem’s
President and CEO.
Verdiem and the districts worked with San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) to deliver energy and cost
savings to thousands of PCs. Both districts qualified for financial incentives from SDG&E, which
developed a special program to help San Diego schools and other non-profit organizations eliminate
energy waste in PCs by subsidizing the cost of Verdiem’s software. At Poway Unified, SURVEYOR is
reducing the cost to power each PC by $18 to $27 per year; at Oceanside, the software is expected
to save at least $18 per PC. These are initial savings based on conservative and user-friendly
power management policies, and the savings are expected to increase as policies are fine-tuned.
Money currently spent by these schools to power PCs that no one is using can instead be used to
further their educational mission. “SURVEYOR can save a significant amount of money,” said Doug
Mann, Executive Director of Facilities for Poway Unified. “And with financial support from SDG&E,
the return on investment is only a few months.”
In addition to saving money, SURVEYOR helps Poway Unified and Oceanside improve the environment.
Over 720 pounds of carbon dioxide -- a major source of greenhouse gas -- are produced in generating
the electricity needed to power a typical PC for a year in California. Due to the lower energy needed
to run their SURVEYOR-enabled PCs, Poway Unified and Oceanside are reducing CO2 emissions by about
980 metric tons per year -- equivalent to removing over 200 SUVs from California roadways.
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