Microsoft Partners on Eco App For PCs

Each PC's power consumption is responsible for an average of 1000 pounds of CO2 emissions every year. And there are more than a billion of them in the world. Striving to go green, the technology industry focused mainly on the corporate sector to reduce its power use but now it's the home users' turn to do their bit.

Verdiem, in collaboration with Microsoft and with the nonprofit Climate Savers Computing Initiative, has
released a free downloadable application called Edison that helps users control their PCs' energy consumption. Based in Seattle, Verdiem sells its energy management software to corporations like Hewlett-Packard, and with Edison home users could enjoy the same benefits for free.

Windows XP and Vista already have power-saving settings, but Verdiem officials say that 90 percent of the world's computers have the energy management settings disabled because they are too complicated to use.

Verdiem's Edison gives you access to power-saving options through four main tabs. The first two tabs are used to tweak the settings of the work and non-work modes, with the help of a slider, from "Save more" to "Save less." The third tab is used to set your schedule while the forth gives access to intermediary settings.

As an example, you can schedule your work time between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. with the "Save less" option, which can switch off the display after 30 minutes and the hard drive after 45, while the PC will be always on. But if you're just hanging around the PC after 5 p.m., in the non-work mode, you can choose the "Save more" option, which will switch off your display and hard drive after five minutes of inactivity, while the PC gets suspended after 10 minutes. Edison does not actually shut down your PC, but "suspends" it in a hibernation mode, using less energy. Once you've set up your schedule and your energy saving preferences, the application will silently reside in your system tray without being intrusive.

Verdiem says it has already saved its corporate customers around $28 million in energy costs and reduced CO2 emissions by 400 million pounds. Verdiem officials say that Edison can help home users cut their household electricity bills by $20 to $95 a year for each PC, depending on local power costs and the type of computer they use.

Other free energy management and saving tools are on the market, like Google's energy-saving gadget or CO2 saver. You could just use Windows' built-in power management settings, too. Why don't you give Edison a spin and tell us what you think?

For more tips on saving power with your PC, have a look at this PC World report.

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