As part of the district's larger energy conservation program managed by Doug Pearson's staff in Building Services , Technical Services has implemented steps to reduce energy consumption in our use of technology. We have focused on four main areas: desktop computers, servers, printers and document managers.

We have close to 9,000 computers in the district. Many of these computers are left on over night and through weekend. Even during normal workdays, many of these computers are on continuously even though they aren't being used.

Two years ago, using a software package designed to monitor periods of desktop computer inactivity and then shut down monitors and computers when they were not in use to save energy, we estimated the district would save $21.50 per year, per computer ($21.50x8,090 computers = $173,935 per year in reduced energy costs, based on 2006 charges of 10¢ per kWh). How this works from an end-user's point of view is shown in the diagram below.

Meanwhile, our computer inventory will be over 9,100 by September 2008 and district utility costs have climbed by 5.3% per year. One problem we've faced is that the older Windows98 computers do not go into stand-by mode and this has been an impediment to realizing more savings. By September, after additional replacements and donations, we hope to be down to 15% of the older models, helping to save energy, as well as help end-users perform their work faster.

One other desktop issue within our energy management framework is the type of monitors we use. Older, big, computer monitors use three to four times the energy of flat-panel LCD screens. All new PCs purchased starting in 2006 have been ordered with LCDs. Replacing older monitors will increase energy efficiency.

By spring 2006 we reached a peak of 145 file servers. New applications or software upgrades for systems, such as our substitute teacher dial-out system or Infinite Campus, often requires two or more servers to host and manage each product. Each server has a power requirement, plus it generates heat requiring more energy to cool a room with a servers.

To mitigate the growth in power consumption in our network operations' center (NOC), we installed a "virtual server environment" in December 2005. By spring 2006, on only 4 higher-end servers, we were able to run 28 servers that previously each had their own hardware. We have continued to increase the capacity of our virtual server environment in stages as we have continued to consolidate many other servers — saving over $60,000 per year in hardware costs alone.

We have more than 650 networked printers in the district and over 60% are over five years old. Older printers typically use up to three times the energy of newer printers. This will be an area for our focus by 2009, as soon as we have completed getting rid of the last of our old Windows 98 desktop computers.

The district spends over $332,313 on paper every year. This translates into about 57 million sheets of paper or about 2,288 sheets of paper for every student, every year. All that paper is printed by either 650 printers or 400 photocopiers.

Previously, when someone in the district needed a copy of something in a Special Ed file, they phoned or e-mailed someone who found the file, made a photocopy of relevant pages, put them in an envelope and had a truck deliver the envelope to the destination site. Since February, images from a computer or electronically scanned paper can be digitally stored and securely accessed by authorized staff anywhere in the district and paper files will no longer need to be stored. Special Ed will save 240,000 sheets of paper each year, enable their file storage space to be reclaimed for other uses once all their files are scanned, and significantly reduce our energy consumption.