The 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 the department was responsible for paying the district’s energy bill, Martin saw how much the district was spending and knew energy was being wasted. He knew that by deploying new technologies and practices, the department could play a key role in reducing the district’s energy waste and costs. One area where 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. The second-shift custodians would repeatedly comment that they found computers 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,” Martin says.

Coeur D’Alene District Director of Technology Jean Bengfort agreed that a computer energy management policy that relied on user action was not practical or effective. “We would go past a school in the evening and see the glow of monitors in a computer lab or classroom,” Bengfort says.


Martin had his work cut out for him. “I was aware that past attempts to implement power management on classroom computers had been met with resistance,” he says. “I was told that computer power management was disruptive to the student users and to IT’s administration processes.” Martin had heard that new solutions were available that not only solved these problems, but also provided IT with a way to centrally manage computer power—something that Coeur D’Alene District’s network supervisor, Ethan Haberman, confirmed soon afterwards.

The Solution

Looking for ways to save energy on computers, Haberman 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 generate energyand dollar-savings reports were a hit with the district’s network supervisor.

Pleased with Power Save’s potential to save energy and money, Haberman 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 five minutes of inactivity, and to place the computer into standby mode after ninety 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, Haberman approached Avista Utilities and Kootenai Electric Cooperative about partnering on the project. Kootenai Electric has since rebated onethird 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.

The Results

“Implementing Power Save across all our computers has definitely raised awareness among our users,” says Bengfort. “No one wants to waste district resources, and certainly we all want to do our part to be environmentally friendly.” When Bengfort shared some of the statistics with staff regarding the typical power consumed versus the power consumed by a computer that has the monitor or hard drive powered down, it was clear to everyone that it was the right thing to do.
 
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 in their roles.