A little trick to save money at SSA, $7,825,000 per year.

David Traver · Last edited by David Traver on Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:18 pm; edited 1 time in total

"BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A fourth-grader has told Monroe County officials that they could save $25,000 a year by turning off computers at night." Boy's Science Project Helps County Save Energy - Indiana News Story - WRTV Indianapolis, at http://www.theindychannel.com/news/16618729/detail.html (last visited June 17, 2008).

I wonder if SSA and DDS offices turn off all of the workstations and printers at night?

25 cents per computer per night. It adds up does it not?

anonymouse · Guest

No, we were told to leave them on.

David Traver · Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:17 pm Post subject:

SSA has over 100,000 work stations. See http://www.ssa.gov/legislation/testimony_111902.html

So, let's do the math. Twenty-five cents, times 100,000, times 365 nights in a year = $9,125,000 per year.

Deduct the one night per week SSA would need to leave them on for system purposes (although that is likely one night a month). Twenty-five cents, times 100,000, times 52 nights per year = $130,000

That comes out to $9,125,000 - $130,000 = $7,825,000 per year.

Just for turning off the work stations six nights per week

I wonder, how many staff positions could SSA fill if it had an extra $7,825,000 per year?

Well, let's do some math. Let's pretend it costs $140,000 for salary, benefits, and administrative costs per field office or ODAR position. That equals 56.25 job fills, just for turning off the workstations six nights per week.

I'd appreciate it if somebody from SSA would send a thank you note or a little award or something to me for passing along the idea. A big check would be nice too. (I'll give it to a charity.)

By the way, every modern workstation can be powered into sleep mode and/or on and off with a remote command from a server. So this would be easy to implement. It would be even easier than sending everybody an e-mail telling them to turn the darn things off.

Why stop with SSA? I wonder how many work stations the federal government has?

Attention attorneys and reps. You turn off your work stations at night too, right?
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"Additionally, we have implemented processes to scan, at least once a month, every SSA workstation (over 100,000), every telephone, and every systems platform for compliance with Agency standards." Testimony by James Lockhart on Computer Security at SSA, at http://www.ssa.gov/legislation/testimony_111902.html (last visited June 18, 2008).

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To save more money, change the work station setup. "Change your suspend type to S3, though, and more devices will be switched off, while their status will be saved internally. This should reduce standby power requirements by another 50 per cent, " PC Plus - Optimise your BIOS, at http://www.pcplus.co.uk/tutorials/hardware/optimise_your_bios (last visited June 18, 2008).

Katall · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 83

One small problem:

Perhaps with the exception of HQ, SSA does not directly pay for electricity.

Another issue:

It takes more energy to turn on a computer than to leave it running. Also, some computers have their worst moments during boot up. Shutting down the computers might result in higher costs for start-up and the need to replace computers more often.

The question is where is the equilibrium?

David Traver · Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 03:46 pm Post subject:

It is not true that it costs more to start a computer than to leave it running. There is no significant "power surge" when starting a computer (unlike starting a refrigerator motor) because the power supplies are regulated and the voltages and amps used to boot the computer and spin the disc drive are very small. That, along with the "it costs less to leave the lights on" is an urban myth.

Also, there is no such thing as free power. I don't know how the accounting works, but I suspect that the cost of the power finds its way back to SSA via a pathway of contracts and agreements. I doubt that power companies and building owners provide the power for 100,000 work stations for free.

ken_karlock · Joined: 01 Nov 2004 Posts: 122

Katall · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 83

I stand corrected on the leave it on/turn it off issue.

Whether SSA would see the savings is a different matter. Given the government budgeting process, SSA might or might not reap a benefit from saving electricity. But the American taxpayer sure would. That is reason enough to do it.

EdJohnson · Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 116

David Traver · Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 03:17 am Post subject:

How often does SSA do network updates? Nightly? Why?

Olan Barnes · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 1138 Location: Michigan

It seems to be a way of life for systems to be on. My Dish Network downloads updates to it's system at 3:00 AM and prior to my retirement we were told to not turn our machines off for upgrades and system maintaince. One thing that was done nightly was to save e-mail to the server and documents for retrivel and other vital data is saved. I could ask my friends what other uses are made of the system but I know many of those types of people read this board.

A week ago I visited a DDS Labor Management meeting and it was fun to see how we all aged and I must say in many ways it is noce to age.

EdJohnson · Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 116

EdJohnson · Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 116

Senturia · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 25 Location: St. Louis, Missouri

We used to have people power down in our office at night, but our IT support is off-site and uses remote access. Most of our service and upgrades are done at night. As someone else already mentioned, that requires everyone to be logged out.

Most of these upgrades and services are not scheduled. They are immediate replies to problems detected. If our server goes down, our tech guy gets a page and is on the whatever line to access our server and fix it. If we update macros, or I have to change permissions or do workstation maintenance, I do it remotely, also. Thus, we need our staff to keep their computers on all the time just in case we need to get onto them in a hurry. Not every night; not every week. But unpredictable.

I think most people turn off their monitors, though.