Tips and tricks to save energy on the computer

Computers are becoming more powerful and are being used for longer periods, which significantly impacts their energy consumption and, in turn, the user’s expenses. In our guide, you will learn how to measure your PC’s energy usage and calculate its annual costs. Additionally, we provide practical tips to help you save electricity in your daily computer use.

1. So you can lower the energy consumption of your PC into everyday life

If you have a powerful and modern PC, it costs you about € 200 per year with a daily use of 6 hours. The longer standby phases and peripheral devices such as the printer and audio systems are not yet included. Especially if you have several family devices, you want to save long -term energy or use several employees as a employer, you should think about how to reduce the energy consumption of PCs.

From the computer now ca. 12% of the electricity costs of private families Makeup (increasing), you should be in a first step Inform if you are a customer of an economic electricity supplier And if it would be worth changing the electrical rate for them. For example, you can do it online for an electricity calculator.

1.1. The standby mode also costs long -term money

In addition, each PC user should avoid unnecessary standby times. A normal desktop PC consumes up to 15 watts. If I had a computer in standby mode for a year, this would mean additional electricity costs IHV 37 € (€ 0.28/kWh, applies to all examples). Therefore, devices should always be turned off completely during the longest breaks.

In addition, many power supplies also consume electricity when devices are off. This consumption is very low, the rescue of this consumption can be useful in the long term with the corresponding number of devices. It is therefore advisable to obtain a strip in plug with a reversal switch. Turn off the current connection. It is particularly practical that it is possible to connect all peripheral devices such as monitor, printers and plug boxes. It is recommended to choose a model with overpilling protection. In addition to reducing energy consumption, this protects devices from damage caused by lightning and short films.

Tipp: There are plug -in stripes with remote control for particularly comfortable operation. The remote controls are wired or wireless. They are particularly suitable for desk systems with cable guides.

Another saving potential is in power supplies. The more electricity consumes the system, the more important is the energy efficiency of the power supply. The power supplies to which the American 80-Plus certification has been assigned has an efficiency of at least 80 % With 20, 50 and 100 percent of use of the power capacity. A distinction is made between the following certificates:

1.2. Save electricity with correct software settings

Many Windows devices have the inactive state and the mode of salvation of energy. Both modes save their session and reduce the energy consumption of the PC. While energy consumption is reduced to a minimum in case of rest, Consume computers with the energy saving mode that emerged from the standby mode up to 15 watts.

To do this, the PC can be «awakened» by the energy saving mode at a time. In the state of inactivity, this requires about how much to climb. However, new and modern PCs often require only 10-15 seconds to get up. So you should If possible, prefer the hibernation of the energy saving mode. You should use both ways only if you want to save a session.

In Windows you also have the opportunity to specify a personal energy saving plan. Simply insert the «energy saving plan» in the search field and click «Select Energy Savings Plan».

There you can not even Edit a current plan or create your energy saving plan. In this example, we create our plan to be able to fall on the Windows factory settings at any time. In the first step you have to choose a model for your plan. Here we recommend the preset plan to «compensate» so that they can therefore can decide what you would like to save.

Now, according to your use behavior, you can set how bright the screen should be, when it should be automatically off and how many minutes the energy saving mode should be activated. These settings are used automatically after the creation of the plan. If you want to return to Windows default settings in the meantime, the plan remains saved so you can choose it with just one click.

Tipp: Advanced PC users can further reduce the PC current consumption by modifying the energy saving plan after creation and selecting extensive settings. There, for example, it is possible to set an automatic hiding place on the basis of inactivity or automatically modify the graphic settings for laptops depending on the battery level.

2. Choose a device that adapts to your needs

Depending on the performance of the device, there may be serious differences in electricity consumption. For example, gambling PCs with powerful external graphics cards often consume significantly more than double the Office computers with graphics on board. Laptops also use significantly lower energy than desktop PCs. It can therefore also be useful for you when the planned purchase of a device can also be included.

A PC with a good graphic card and a processor is particularly useful for users who like to play demanding games Or use the computer for editing images and videos. In addition to the graphic card, also powerful processors, units and fans are among electricity eaters. It is easy for the normal Office applications to fall on medium -ray and graphic processors on board. Below is a table with sampling systems in what way the electricity prices of the different sampling systems can differ per year. These are medium -sided hardware systems, which operate for 6 hours a day with an average of 70% load without including peripheral devices (electrical price 28 cents/kWh).

Despite the great differences So it’s not worth changing the device to save electricity for financial reasonsSince laptops are generally significantly more expensive than comparable desktop PCs. However, laptops offer the advantage of mobility. With a new purchase or even office equipment, you should however consider how powerful your system must beTo meet your needs.

3. So you can calculate the energy consumption of your PC

To calculate the annual energy consumption of your PC, you must first measure it. For this, the energy costs for socket are available for this. You can get this in stores from a price of about ten euros. However, economic devices usually allow a deviation of approx. 10 percent. To obtain a more precise result, you have to dig more deeply in the pocket or borrow a device from your electricity supplier.

In order to map your use behavior as precisely as possible, we recommend measuring for a period of at least a week And also compensate for your average service duration per day. After measurement, you can view the consumption of average energy per hour (in watt) on the device. To calculate the device’s annual electricity costs, then put your time of daily use in hours (NH), the energy consumption of the device in Watt per hour (WH) and the price of electricity/kWh in euros (p) in the following formula