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'Green Screens' Campaign: Saving Energy with Screensavers and ENERGY STAR ®

Screensavers can increase electricity usage:

Screensavers are fun, but did you know that running a screen saver can cause your computer to use more electricity? Estimates are that over One Billion Dollars may be wasted annually in the United States alone.

This can result in:

• Higher electricity bills - for the computer itself.
• Higher electricity bills - for additional air conditioning needed to cool the room, due to higher heat output of the computer.
• More fossil fuels being burned with more pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, in order to generate the electricity.
• More wear and tear on your computer hard drive.

Have your cake and eat it too?

It's possible to enjoy your screensaver AND save energy, by using the built-in energy-saving features of your computer.

How? By setting the screensaver to come on after a certain delay, and then, after a second, longer delay, having the display or the entire computer "sleep." This prevents your screensaver and monitor from staying on 24 hours a day. Research suggests that if your computer is inactive for more than 30-60 minutes, there is a good chance that no one is there to enjoy the screensaver, so you might as well have the monitor or computer turn off to save power.

For step-by-step instructions, choose your computer's Operating System version:

• Microsoft Windows 98
• Microsoft Windows 2000
• Microsoft Windows XP
• Apple Mac OS X 9
• Apple Mac OS X 10.1
• Apple Mac OS X 10.2
• Apple Mac OS X 10.3 - 10.6

For more information, visit the ENERGY STAR Website.