Enable Power Save

“Power save” is generally an option that can be used in a computer, monitor, or most other electronic devices. The power save option is a large part of green computing practices since it automatically reduces power consumption when the component is not in use.

With computers running a Windows operating system, the power save options can be turned on and configured by:

Clicking the Start button and then selecting Control Panel.
Next, click on the Power Options icon and make sure the power scheme is set to the Energy Star option.
Next, select a time for the monitor to power down and a time for the computer to go into standby mode. When you are finished, save your settings by clicking OK.

With a Mac running OS X, the power save option can enabled by:

Going to the Apple Menu and selecting System Preferences.
From there, you will need to click the Energy Saver button and set the time intervals for sleep mode.

Unfortunately, there are so many different types of Linux operating systems that we can not give the steps for all of them here. To enable power management from the terminal in Linux is also well out of the scope of this article. Each individual distribution has methods for enabling these power saving techniques. Please visit their documentation for how to do this.

Green computing is not just about servers that utilize hyper threading or extensive power management systems—it’s also about what you do at home. Remember that every little bit of energy saved equals less pollutants in our environment.