Power is all the rage nowadays, especially in technology. In sum, the demand for greater power efficiency arises from a confluence of three market drivers. One is the rising technology advancements which have led to chips and computers that consume more electricity. Another is the increasing demand for smaller size electronic products that are packing in more functions and requiring compact portable power source. The third market driver is “green” regulations such as Energy Star and EuP. Among all environmental issues, manufacturers would rather focus on power. Why? Because saving power or energy saves money—something end-consumers are more interested in rather than saving the planet from electronic waste. A recent study by Springboard Research found that vendors are allocating the largest amount of green IT spending to increasing the energy efficiency of their products, followed by recycling and disposal, and in third place, manufacturing in a more environmentally friendly way. Enterprises in the Asia- Pacific are the biggest users of electricity that goes into computing. More than $5 billion is spent each year on powering computers in the region, with over 66 percent of this spending directed toward systems that are in idle mode.
To get a grip on the power problem today, innovation would play an imminent part. The good news is there are so many different ways to solving power-related issues. The industry is brimming with solutions ranging from energy-efficient processors to liquid cooling of high-end server systems. Other trends I am seeing in the industry are the replacement of linear power supplies by switch-mode, adopting multi-core processing systems that deliver higher performance levels for less energy, and the increasing development of energy-efficient components such as lamps and electric motors. There are almost as many approaches of solving today’s period of energy change as there are available products. After reviewing several power efficiency claims of different companies, I have come to the conclusion that manufacturers are realizing that they cannot ignore power in all aspects of product development, and that they cannot respond alone.
