NComputing: Reducing Carbon

The Carbon Reduction Commitment

The Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) is a new mandatory emissions trading scheme, which aims to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted in the UK.

It was first discussed in 2006 and introduced by Government.

The CRC will affect large, non-energy intensive organisations in both the public and private sector ranging from retail chains and the hotel and leisure industry to local authorities, large hospitals and educational establishments. Organisations that meet the qualification criteria, which is based on how much electricity they consumed in 2008, will be required to participate in the CRC scheme. Participating organisations will have to monitor their emissions and purchase allowances (or “tokens”), sold by Government, for each tonne of CO2 they produce.

Government estimates indicate that around 20,000 commercial and public sector organisations will be required to participate in CRC in some way. The majority of these will simply be required to disclose their carbon footprint information once every few years, assisting the scheme administrator to monitor their electricity usage. Of these, around 5,000 organisations will be required to participate fully in CRC. This means they must not only record and monitor their CO2 emissions, but also purchase allowances.

CRC is a key element of the Government’s climate change policy and is intended to ensure that participant organisations contribute to UK targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

How NComputing Helps

You’re probably wondering where we, or where NComputing fits into all of this Carbon Reduction.

Replacing your standard computers with NComputing terminals will not only save you money but will also reduce your electricity bills, cooling bills, electrical waste disposal and more.

Lowering the above bills also reduces your carbon footprint and helps you conform to the CRC scheme.

Reducing Electricity Usage

NComputing terminals use a maximum of 5 Watts of electricity with an average usage of anything between 1 – 5 Watts.
Compare this to a standard PC’s electricity usage of 110 Watts.

See the chart below for a comparison.

For more information on how electricity is saved, more accurate estimations or estimations for your own company, get in touch with us. We’ll be glad to help.

Reducing Cooling Bills

You’re probably more than aware that a room full of computers will not only use a lot of electricity, but will also produce a lot of heat.

Why? Ultimately, all electricity used in electrical devices is turned to heat. With an average electricity usage of 110 Watts per PC, that’s 110 Watts of heat being produced – and that’s a lot!

NComputing terminals produce next to no heat, so you don’t have to cool them as much. This means less cooling equipment, less running costs and again, even less electricity.

Less Electrical Waste

One of the fastest growing parts of the waste stream is e-waste, according to the Silicon Valley Toxics Commission.

With an electricity usage of 1-5Watts per N-Computing device, the amount of electronic components (and thus, potential e-waste) is tiny – especially compared to that of a computer.

This doesn’t even take into account that compared to standard computers there are considerably less electronic components present in an N-Computing device. There’s no e-waste producing hard drives, storage, CPU’s, GPU’s, RAM, PSU, etc.

With a weight of around 150 grams per N-Computing device compared to the average 10KG computer, you can easily grasp how much less e-waste would be produced compared to standard computers. This is also still less than thin clients, which weigh around 0.5KG (500 grams) or even more.

Figures:
100 standard computers would easily produce 1,000KG of waste.
100 N-Computing devices would produce just 15KG of waste.

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