Thin Clients Change Atmosphere

April 4, 2007: A German study has found significant power, ecological and financial savings can be harvested by making the switch from PCs to thin clients.

The research comes from the German based Fraunhofer Institute, who investigated the CO2 emission saving of IGEL Technology thin clients against traditional business PCs. With PCs consuming an average of 85 watts, the Fraunhofer research found thin clients including their server, were consuming somewhere between 40 and 50 watts.

Unlike traditional PCs, thin clients provide a ‘slimmed down’ that accesses information stored on the server to eliminate moving parts and utilise little memory while maintaining the regular functionality of a PC.

Overall, the Fraunhofer Institute found energy consumption to be 50 percent lower in this clients then the more traditional PC.

Dr Hartmut Pflaum, the Fraunhofer researcher involved in the project, says the results are significant for businesses looking to address operations costs surrounding energy consumption, as well as their impact on the environment. “In view of climate change and the need to reduce CO2 emissions, this is an important factor,” he says.

The research found that in Britain alone, businesses could save over AUS$180 million a year in operational costs by switching from PCs to thin clients. The switch could also save the atmosphere 485,000 tonnes of C02 emissions.

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