Interview: Verdiem, Making Computers Use Less Energy
by Mark Ontkush, Boston, Massachusetts, USA 
on 04. 5.07
Wouldn't it be great if your PC took energy consumption into its own hands? By this I mean it would turn itself on and off, shut down the monitor, and go to sleep automatically. Sure, there are a lot of products out that manage power consumption for computers (including OSes), but I'm talking about going one step further- the computer actually learns something about you. It knows you write in spurts, knows that you leave for lunch between 11:30 and 12 every day, knows you never show up on the weekend. It learns your habits so that it can reduce its own power consumption accordingly, without inconveniencing you.
Doesn't that sound, say, farfetched. In actuality, the technology exists and is being deployed to thousands of PC worldwide. VerdiemTM, the inventor, was at hand to explain it to Treehugger in this exclusive interview. Kevin Klustner, CEO of Verdiem, explains the marvel.
So, tell us a little about Verdiem Kevin, the product, the business.
Hi Mark, thanks for inviting me to this interview. The company was founded in 2001 by an entrepreneur whose wife was a school teacher. In light of the consistently tight budgets facing the district, the founder's wife was upset by the amount of energy, and therefore money, wasted by school and district computers that were left on all night. The founder wrote a program to turn them off, and that's where it all began.
After developing the initial version of the software and seeing the success it had within the school district, Verdiem's founder saw a bigger business opportunity in managing power consumption of networked PCs for even larger organizations. That's how our main product, SURVEYOR (TM), got started. The development was initially funded by a grant from the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance; since then, the company has grown significantly and further refined the product. To date, over 300,000 seats have been sold to schools, universities, government agencies and corporations across North America.
What does your product do? It's smart, right?
It's smart. SURVEYOR works by intelligently placing PCs into lower power settings when not in use. SURVEYOR’s Adaptive SmartProfile (TM) analyzes the behavior of the user. This information is used to control the power settings, ensuring that networked PCs are in right power state (on, hibernate, standby, etc.) at the right time. This maximizes energy savings without interfering with end-user productivity. SURVEYOR also features reporting capabilities to quantify savings.
And how much can I save? I assume energy is the big savings but there may be others.
Verdiem helps save energy, but as we all know, energy is money, and it is getting more expensive all the time, particularly in developing countries. A typical PC consumes 600 kWh of electricity a year. We actually provide a money back guarantee that you will save at least 10 percent off your computing energy bill, but we find that SURVEYOR consistently reduces consumption by about a third. That translates into a 3-6% annual reduction in total electricity consumption. Additionally, organizations also reduce associated CO2, greenhouse gas emissions. It averages about $20 per PC, per year.
Are there auxiliary services that you offer?
Yes, we offer pre and post-sale services for our customers, including Network Energy Analysis. This is for prospective customers who are interested in learning how much their PCs consume each day, and want to know how much energy and cost savings could be achieved with SURVEYOR. Verdiem will conduct a PC energy audit on a sampling of a prospect's PCs. At the conclusion of the energy audit the prospect receives a report detailing baseline costs and estimated savings. We also offer a Maintenance and Support package after purchase that includes free upgrades to any new releases that are made available during the maintenance and support period, and an annual Network Energy Analysis to ensure networked PCs are maximizing their energy savings.
What is the payback period and return on investment (ROI)?
Our pricing starts at $25 per PC – a one time licensing cost. The payback period averages about 15-18 months or less, depending on the cost of energy. However, we have agreements in place with several US utilities which provide various rebates to organizations that buy and install the software. Companies that take advantage of these rebates will see a significantly faster payback. For example, Southern California Edison offers a $15/PC rebate on SURVEYOR through their Express Efficiency program. Obviously, if you take advantage of this offer, the payback period drops significantly.
Is there a minimum or maximum organizational size that would benefit from your product?
Any organization can benefit from our software, but it really comes down to at what point the savings has compelling value for a particular organization. Typically Verdiem works with customers that have 5,000 PCs or more.
Are there other, non software related things that 'Joe User' can do to save energy?
Well, the easiest thing users can do is turn off their PCs at night, but countless studies and personal experience indicate that the majority of users don't. That's why software can make such a big difference.
What do you have planned for the future?
The confluence of several factors – the rising cost of energy, the political climate and the recognition of business leaders that implementing green initiatives delivers bottom line results – is creating a groundswell of interest in our technology, so managing the company's growth is priority number one. We are just beginning to expand internationally. Energy costs are higher and regulations are much tighter across Europe, so we see a huge opportunity there. In addition, we are in the process of investigating ways to wring energy savings out of other IT devices and peripherals, such as printers and copiers, so we can help our customers create even greater efficiencies.
Thanks for the info.
Thank you for the opportunity.
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I'd like to note one common myth that this article perpetuates - the idea that turning computers off at night saves power.
This used to be true across the board, and may still be true in some cases, however many modern computers draw more power in the off position than they do in standby. This is due in part to features like wake on LAN which are often on by default. The same is often true of monitors and other peripherals.
Many companies push updates to their workstations at night to avoid inconveniencing users, and to make sure that updates happen on schedule. The consequences of missing an update can be quite expensive for the company (theft of customer financial data, for instance)
So I think it's irresponsible to recommend that people turn off their computers at night in all cases. You're not necessarily saving energy, and you're potentially exposing your employer and customers to liability.
This isn't meant to discount the ideas behind surveyor - without more technical details it's impossible to know how the product handles wake on LAN and other features that draw power in standby and off positions.
I turn off my computer at night thus saving energy and the computer - though a colleague said that computers last longer when left on all the time - I had a computer which lasted me five years after turning it off when I'd finish using it - This idea is great but those who seem to benefit are big companies.
hi-
I'd agree that automated backups/updates etc usually happen at night, but I'm sure power-saving can work around those times.
I notice that the sleep mode on my mac is a lot faster and more reliable than the equivalent on my PC, and hence I use it much more. I hope I'm saving some energy, but I dont know for sure...
Power consumption on some of the latest PCs (esp powerful graphics cards) is getting a bit much.
The first person's post is really more misleading than any of the comments in this article. He says that systems actually consume more power in the off mode than they do in a standby mode. That's just flat wrong. On average systems will drop to around 5-10 watts in standby, but when they go to off mode they hardly ever (if ever at all) draw more than 2 watts of power. And yes, that's to monitor the NIC card as well as the on/off button. Grab a watt meter and prove it for yourself if you'd like.
Also, if you take a moment to read through this company's website you easily can see that the centralized approach to controlling pwr states allows them to wake PCs remotely and then put them back into a sleep or off mode, when one is done pushing patches or such. No need at all to leave systems on for IT to do their thing --just turn em on when you need them on --but leave em off when they're just sitting there doing nothing but eating energy (like leaving a 100 watt light bulb on all the time). This makes perfect sense to me...
I believe the initial surge of power to turn on a computer uses more energy than keeping it on all day.
turn off your computer whenever possible, no need to run it on all night.
"I believe the initial surge of power to turn on a computer uses more energy than keeping it on all day. "
absolutely, unequivocally, and demonstrably, FALSE.
please, buy yourself a wattmeter and do some science of your own before posting misinformation. they are cheap, you can get them on ebay for less than $30 (the 'kill-a-watt').
i have my pc connected through a watt-hour-meter. there is no 'initial surge' that's any higher than the maximum the machine will consume at any given moment. when i first turn my pc on, it uses about 185 to 200 watts. while it's running, it uses from 135 to 170 watts. two seconds of 200 watts is inconsequential compared to 135 watts continuous.
This software looks awesome, too bad there isn't some sort of open source type of software so that many more people would be able to download something like this for free. Hint, anybody want to start this project?
There is a marked energy difference between a switched off and sleeping computer.
Take a look at the research linked below - it collates the latest studies and provides real world case studies of the potential savings.
http://www.dssw.co.uk/research/
My company makes Power Manager, an energy saving product for Macs.
http://www.dssw.co.uk/powermanager/
Yes, what an amazing new invention... hmmm have you read the (no) "privacy" policy...
"We may disclose personal information to thid party service providers (e.g., payment processing and data storage and processing facilities) that assist us in our work. We limit the personal information provided to these service providers to that reasonably necessary for them to perform their functions."
So you'll allow them to take all information on your pc and sell it to anybody they want. MS will anyways have access to all you private information, which is defined like this:
"Personal information also includes information about an individual’s activities, such as information about his or her purchases, and demographic information, such as date of birth, gender, geographic area, and preferences, when any of this information is linked to personal information that identifies that individual."
So it covers just about anything about you... I would never ever install this.
About saving power by turning off you pc at night: off course you should turn it off!!!!! No one in my company (with 1000 employees) keep their pc on at night). It's company policy that we turn of light, computer etc. at night to save power. There is NO "power surge" when you turn a PC on - that's ridicilous!!
I just read about how much energy would be conserved if Microsoft would make Windows start faster... it takes a ridicilous time to start - maybe 5 minutes for many people... and also to shut down. This would save WAY more energy than this software...
Come on guys, it's crazy just to keep your computer on 24/7 - at least use sleep mode at night...