HP to reduce PC energy consumption by a quarter
Industry asks: But how?
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HP's ambitious plan to slash energy consumption in its PCs by 25 per cent by 2010 has been greeted with scepticism in some quarters.
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas the computer firm proclaimed its intent to cut the carbon footprint of its desktop and notebook PCs by adopting more efficient power supplies and lower energy chipsets and processors.
HP also boasted that it had more Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) "gold" products than any rival. EPEAT is a voluntary US environmental performance standard for computers.
IT analyst firm Ovum said it is admirable to see a big multinational tech company "taking a lead", but reckoned HP, along with other PC vendors, has a lot of catching up to do to become more environmentally friendly.
"Reducing energy consumption by 25 per cent by 2010 is good, but needs to be tempered by the fact that in 2005 PCs with their big, fat Intel chips were at their most gas-guzzling. And all those new PCs available by 2010 will simply add to the PC mountain," said Ovum.
Rival PC makers are also sceptical. A spokesman for Lenovo told El Reg that 25 per cent reduction was "a great objective", but said it was hard to imagine how HP could deliver that goal.
When asked if Lenovo could offer up its own impressive percentage on reducing energy consumption in its products, the spokesman said: "Clearly we have our own objectives in terms of what we would call green IT [including ditching PVC in all Lenovo products by 2009], but we wouldn't want to commit to a definitive figure."
The Register asked HP to comment on the lukewarm response it had received from competitors and analysts. We also requested an explanation of how its 25 per cent goal was attainable within two years. The vendor is yet to return our call. ®
COMMENTS
85% by 2010...how about NOW?
Wow, HP is looking to increase power efficiency to 85% by 2010. Today’s power supplies - at least the ones Dell is using - are already running about 80% to 85%. By my estimations, this translates to about 25% less power use. So companies talking about 85% power efficiency by 2010 haven't been paying much attention to the efficiency gains made by the rest of the industry, and more importantly are pretty much behind the curve.
Am I missing something here?
Only sell low end machines.
I can see this easily happening. All they have to do is only sell low end machines.This is all that 90% of the users need anyways so no big deal.
easy fix
easy fix for how soon we forget the old P3 class which ran between 20 to 30 watts !
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