New study shows thin clients are more energy efficient than comparable PCs by more than 50 percent

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. – May 16, 2007 – Businesses in the United States are home to approximately 22.9 million desktop PCs. By switching from PCs to thin clients, U.S. businesses could save about $354.7 million in electricity bills and slash CO₂ emissions by about 2.45 billion pounds a year. IGEL Technology, the world’s fastest-growing major thin client vendor, today announced that researchers from the world-renowned Fraunhofer Institute in Germany used IGEL Technology thin clients to investigate the power and CO₂ emissions of thin clients against traditional business PCs and discovered significant power, environmental and financial savings.

“Energy consumption for thin clients when in operation was up to 51 percent lower than for conventional PCs,” concluded Dr. Hartmut Pflaum, the Fraunhofer researcher. “While PCs consume about 85 watts on average, thin clients including their server and data room cooling get by with only 40 to 50 watts. In view of climate change and the need to reduce CO₂ emissions, this is an important factor.”

Using an estimate of 22.9 million business desktop PCs in operation around the U.S., businesses could be saving a total of about $354.7 million a year and cutting CO₂ emission by about 2.45 billion pounds.

“The financial savings are significant but the impact on cutting CO₂ emissions is what’s really impressive,” said Stephen Yeo, strategic director of worldwide marketing for IGEL Technology. “Saving 2.45 billion pounds of CO₂ emissions would remove the equivalent impact of 106,521 average U.S. households each year.”

“Add to this the typical 25 percent total cost of ownership (TCO) savings of buying and running a thin client compared to a PC and there can be no doubt that server-based computing is the economic and eco-friendly way forward,” added Yeo.

Thin clients are designed as a “super slimmed down” alternative to the PC. Accessing information stored on the server, thin clients have no moving parts and little memory while maintaining all the functionality of a PC. Due to this superior design, thin clients use less power, are more reliable and simpler to centrally manage.


Notes to Editors

Fraunhofer Institute Findings - Energy requirement with server share

	Thin Client	Thin Client with server pro rata + server cooling3	PC
Power consumption1	16 W	41 W	85 W
x 8 hours per day	128 Wh	328 Wh	680 Wh
x 220 working days per year	28 kWh	72 kWh	149 kWh
Costs for 1 working station per year2	$5.67	$14.54	$30.03
- 10 working stations	$56.70	$145.40	$300.30
- 100 working stations	$567.00	$1,454.00	$3,003.00
- 1,000 working stations	$5,670.00	$14,540.00	$30,030.00
Savings TC compared to PC	81%	51%

¹ Average active power
² Electricity tariff  = 0.15 kWh
³  Worst case: 20 User / Server


CO₂ wastage with server share

	Thin Client	Thin Client with server pro rata + server cooling3	PC
Power consumption1	16 W	41 W	85 W
x 8 hours per day	128 Wh	328 Wh	680 Wh
x 220 working days per year	28 kWh	72 kWh	149 kWh
Costs for 1 working station per year2	38.89 lbs	100.00 lbs	206.95 lbs
- 10 working stations	388.90 lbs	1,000.00 lbs	2,069.50 lbs
- 100 working stations	3,889.00 lbs	10,000.00 lbs	20,695.00 lbs
- 1,000 working stations	38,890.00 lbs	100,000.00 lbs	206,950.00 lbs

  
¹ Average active power
² The production of one kWh from the electricity network gives rise to 1.39 lbs CO₂