Addition of Ultra-thin Clients Proposed in Energy Star Computer Spec

The EPA wants to add ultra-thin clients and mobile thin clients as it seeks to tighten the Energy Star specification for computers. Energy Star market penetration reached 74 percent for notebooks and 27 percent for desktops, the agency said, quoting 2009 unit shipment data. So it wants to “develop more stringent energy-efficiency requirements for existing products,” it said in a “discussion document” for version 6.0 of the computer specification. The EPA will host a meeting in Washington March 10 to discuss proposals in the document, it said.

As of January, Energy Star-qualified computer products in the U.S. included 1,170 desktops, 3,552 notebooks, 96 workstations and 58 small-scale servers, the agency said. It wants to group netbooks and tablets in a separate “ultra-low energy mobile computer product” category. The agency sees netbooks and tablets as an “area of both sales and market share growth,” it said, and “grouping these products together would recognize similarities in assumed usage patterns and operation.” It also thinks these computer product operate more on battery power than notebooks, which calls for a “tailored” typical energy use profile, the agency said.

In addition to strengthening the efficiency requirements in the revised spec, the agency wants to weigh the “cost versus efficiency benefit of more stringent” internal power supply efficiency criteria and “assess the role of low-output internal power supplies in future system designs.” In response to stakeholder suggestions, the agency would consider power allowances for graphic capabilities, accounting for new technologies and features. The EPA also has data that graphics processing in computers is increasing and needs to be monitored, it said. It will keep the successful “power management requirement” and support further innovation in the area, it said. Rules for incorporating energy efficient ethernet-compliant network hardware into Energy Star computers would be considered, the EPA said.

The EPA will propose a life cycle assessment criterion for laptops that will “associate life cycle GHG [greenhouse gas] impacts with product attributes,” it said. And as the Energy Star program and the marketplace “mature,” the agency would consider “how it can respond to consumer interest in other environmental benefits such as lower toxicity” in Energy Star products, it said. “EPA plans to look at existing, tested industry standards for such environmental criteria.”