Office Equipment

The energy consumption for Information Technology (IT) increased relevantly in the last years. A further rising of about 40 % within the next 10 years is predicted. Thus, office equipment becomes one of the most relevant energy consuming sectors in office buildings – and ranges commonly between 20 % and 40 %. On the other hand savings about 40 up to 50 % are economical feasible and will reduce the energy costs about 200 € per workplace within the 5-year lifetime of the equipment . Alone in Germany three percent of the total power consumption is accounted for office equipment, information technology (IT) and communication systems.

According to the EU Comission the energy consumption of office devices due to stanby modus are 47 TWh per annum. This equates costs of 6,4 mio € and an emission of 19 megatons CO₂. Without any measures the energy consumption would increase constantly. Therefore the Ecodesign Regulatory Committee endorsed the Commissions proposal for a regulation, reducing standby energy consumption of households and office devices. These Ecodesign Directive applies to electric devises. It specifies a maximum power consumption which is allowed for in-stance for office devices in standby. The intended admissible energy consumption in 2010 will allow 1 Watt for devices which are switched off or “are offline” (da fällt mir auch nichts besseres ein, aber “off modus” hört sich komisch an!) and 0, 5 Watt in 2013. The directives goal is to save 35 TWh energy per year until 2020. [Ecodesign Directive]

Here you will find best practice examples, which shows the potencial of energy saving.