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Faronics Power Save and the Coeur D’Alene School District
Background
Located in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, Coeur D’Alene School District is responsible for educating just over 10,000 students with 1,300 staff members. The district has approximately 4,000 workstations running Microsoft Windows XP: 3,500 desktop computers and 500 laptops. A small number are running Mac OS X as well. Supporting these workstations are 40 servers running Microsoft Windows Server.
Problem
Bryan Martin, Coeur D’Alene District’s Director of Maintenance, was looking for ways the Maintenance department could help the district save money. Since Maintenance was the department responsible for paying the district’s energy bill, Bryan saw just how much the district was spending and knew that there was an element of ‘energy waste’ involved. He knew that by deploying new technologies and practices, the Maintenance department could play a key role in reducing the district’s energy waste and costs.
One area where Mr. Martin wanted to reduce energy use was the Technology department. Classroom computers and monitors were not always being powered down by students and teachers at the end of the school day. Coeur D’Alene District’s second-shift custodians would repeatedly comment that they found computers being left on overnight when they were cleaning classrooms.
"Not only was this a waste of energy, it was a waste of the district’s money."
Coeur D’Alene District’s Director of Technology, Jean Bengfort, agreed that a computer energy management policy that relied on user action was not practical or effective. “It became evident that we had computers that were being left on during the night when we would go past a school in the evening and see the glow of monitors in a computer lab or classroom,” says Jean. “Not only was this a waste of energy, it was a waste of the district’s money.”
“I was aware that past attempts to implement power management on classroom computers had been met with resistance,” says Mr. Martin. “I was told that computer power management was disruptive to the student users and to IT’s administration processes.” Bryan had heard that new solutions were now available that not only solved these problems, but also provided IT with a way to centrally manage computer power. He then spoke with Ethan Haberman, Coeur D’Alene District’s Network Supervisor, who within a week came back and confirmed that this was now possible and practical to implement.
Solution
Looking for ways to save energy on computers, Ethan turned to the ENERGY STAR website, where in addition to energy efficient hardware listings and best practices, he discovered a software-based desktop computer energy management solution that supports both the Windows and Mac platforms— Faronics Power Save.
Power Save’s ability to keep computers running when users need them, accurately determine when computers were truly inactive so they could be powered down, and its ability to generate energy and dollar savings reports were a hit with the district’s network supervisor. “We did review a number of competing solutions,” says Ethan. “When we did an RFP for the software, Faronics Power Save came in on top of all the competitors with a great set of features, within our budget, and the best bang for the buck.”
Pleased with Power Save’s energy and dollar savings results, Ethan deployed Faronics’ workstation energy management software to all of the district’s computers during the spring and summer months. Power Save has been configured to turn off all monitors after 5 minutes of inactivity, and set to place the computer into standby mode after 90 minutes of inactivity. All computers automatically shut down at 10 p.m., and remain off until users power them on in the morning.
To offset the license cost of Power Save, Ethan approached Avista Utilities and Kootenai Electric Cooperative about partnering on the project. Kootenai Electric has since rebated a third of the software cost for the four schools it serves, and Avista plans to rebate the remaining two-thirds to cover the software for the remaining twelve schools.
Results
“Implementing Power Save across all our computers has definitely raised awareness among our users,” says Jean. “No one wants to waste district resources and certainly we all want to do our part to be environmentally friendly.” When Jean shared some of the statistics with staff regarding the typical power consumed versus a computer that has the monitor or hard drive powered down, it was clear to everyone that it was the right thing to do. Jean continues, “Since we were able to recover the cost of the software through the Avista and Kootenai Power grants, it was a ‘no-brainer’ that we needed to purchase Power Save. The return on investment was immediate.”
"Since we were able to recover the cost of the software through the Avista and Kootenai Power grants, it was a ‘no-brainer’ that we needed to purchase Power Save. The return on investment was immediate."
Coeur D’Alene School District expects to save as much as $300,000 over the course of three years. Having centralized control over workstation power states has also proven to be a huge time saver for Coeur D’Alene District, making IT staff more efficient at their roles.
The district experienced such positive results from Power Save that it even caught the eye of Coeur D’Alene School District’s Superintendent, Hazel Bauman. “The quest to be great stewards of the taxpayers’ money is a team effort. Employees like Ethan are like gold to us in their creativity and commitment,” she said.
In addition to using Power Save, Coeur D’Alene School District has also committed to ensuring all future computer and monitor purchases meet ENERGY STAR requirements. As a result, the district has earned a Certificate of Recognition from the Environmental Protection Agency. According to ENERGY STAR Program Manager Steve Ryan, the district will save approximately 2,193,581 kilowatt hours annually—equivalent to more than $100,000 in annual electricity costs.
“We’ve had a very positive experience with both Faronics and Power Save. Faronics sent down a couple of employees to help with the installation and deployment of the software, and they worked with our power company to test how much power we’d be saving using the software. The product has worked well and we are in the process of planning our upgrade to the next version.” says Ethan.
Faronics delivers software that helps manage, simplify, and secure desktop computers. Our products ensure users enjoy a trouble-free computing experience, and have freed IT personnel from tedious helpdesk requests. Faronics’ products benefit educational institutions, healthcare facilities, libraries, government organizations, and corporations in over fifty countries worldwide. |
