News

Intel Teams with NRDC for Power Supply Design Guide

March 10, 2004 by Jeff Shepard

Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) announced that it has teamed with the National Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC) to release a new power supply design guide intended to help OEMs create less power-hungry machines. The Intel team that has developed the guide will be recognized at the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star dinner in Washington.

The new guideline from Intel and the NRDC sets out design specifications, which they say should be used when designing power supplies. The power savings are achieved through new circuit designs and switching out some components for slightly more expensive and efficient parts. The NRDC estimates that power supply makers can implement these guidelines without significantly increasing the cost to the consumer. The added cost of a more efficient power supply is $5 to $10.

"We first began looking at power supplies and their efficiencies a few years ago," said Todd Brady, product ecology program manager at Intel. "NRDC was also looking at them at that time. In our analysis of power supplies we found that most people used their machines for surfing the Internet or using desktop applications - very low power processes. As a result, a lot of energy is being wasted."