By Steve Gorman
Apple's new MacBooks are displayed following an Apple event in San Francisco, California March 9, 2015. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith/File Photo
California regulators on
Wednesday adopted the nation's first mandatory energy efficiency rules for
computers and monitors - devices that account for 3 percent of home electric
bills and 7 percent of commercial power costs in the state.
The state Energy Commission
said that when fully implemented the industry-backed plan will save consumers
$373 million a year and conserve at least as much electricity annually as it
takes to power all of San Francisco's households.
Final approval at a meeting of
the five-member commission in Sacramento capped several years spent developing
the rules in collaboration with computer makers, consumer activists, the
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other environmental groups.
The new rules will cut
greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion to generate power by
700,000 tons a year, the NRDC said.
The standards work by setting
benchmarks for machines' overall energy use - focusing on when they are turned
on but left inactive - and leave manufacturers flexibility to choose which
efficiency measures are employed to meet the standards, an approach aimed at
fostering innovation.
The rules drew support from
nearly 40 companies represented by the Information Technology Industry Council,
including such Silicon Valley giants as HP Inc and Intel Corp.
HP environmental compliance
manager Paul Ford called the standards "groundbreaking," describing
them as "ambitious but achievable."
"This is a big
deal," said Mark Cooper, a policy analyst for the Consumer Federation of
America, adding that computer ownership per capita in California ranks second
in the world behind Sweden.
In California, computers and
monitors draw an estimated 5,610 gigawatt-hours of energy per year -
representing roughly 3 percent of residential electric bills and 7 percent of
power costs for commercial users - much of that while the devices sit idle.
The NRDC has said the amount
of power consumed by computers and monitors will be reduced by a third once
there is a complete turnover in existing stocks of those devices.
The first phase of the rules
takes effect in January 2019 for desktop, laptop and notebook computers. The
standards kick in for workstations and small-scale servers in January 2018 and
for computer monitors in July 2019.
Video-game consoles,
industrial computers, large-scale servers, tablets and other handheld devices
are exempt.
The standards will add about
$14 to average retail costs of desktops, which are far less energy efficient
than laptops, but will save consumers more than $40 in electric bills over five
years, according to commission estimates.
Over half of desktops typically in use in California
now meet the first tier of the standards, which grow more stringent in 2021.
Seventy-three percent of laptops already comply.
Computer monitors have farther to go, with a
compliance rate of just 14 percent among the 25 million units now installed in
homes and businesses statewide.
The latest rules could set a new standard for
manufacturers everywhere by virtue of the size of the consumer market in
California, which often leads the way in U.S. environmental initiatives.
If the same standards are adopted nationwide, they
could save U.S. consumers about $2.2 billion annually in electric bills while
reducing energy generation by the equivalent output of seven coal-fired power
plants, the NRDC said.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Daniel Wallis
and Jonathan Oatis)
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