Int. No. 378
By Council Members Brewer, Clarke, Fidler, Gennaro, Gentile, Gerson, Koppell, Liu, Lopez, Nelson, Quinn, Sanders, Sears, Weprin and Jackson
A Local Law to amend the New York City Charter, in relation to the energy efficient use of City office equipment.
Be it enacted by the Council as follows:
Section 1. Declaration of Legislative Findings and Intent. In Fiscal 2002, New York City spent approximately $350 million on electricity, using over 4 billion kilowatt-hours. Reducing the City's electricity use will not only save money, but will also reduce stress on the power grid, reduce the need to build new power plants, and may improve local air quality.
The City can achieve some energy savings at no cost by taking advantage of the power management options of its computers, printers, facsimile machines, and photocopy machines. In order to maximize the effectiveness of power management on computers, screensavers must be disabled, as they prevent computers from entering into low power modes.
Commercially available software can enable power management options of computers over a network. The Council recently purchased one such program for its approximately 600 computers, which is conservatively predicted to save $8451 on energy costs and 105,636 kWh per year. The Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications estimates that the City operates been 100,000 and 125,000 personal computers. If the savings projected for the City Council hold true for the rest of the City, the City could save $1,408,500 annually and 17606 MWh by using a power savings program with 100,000 computers.
Accordingly, the Council declares that it is reasonable and necessary to require that power management functions are enabled on City computers, printers, facsimile machines, and photocopy machines.
§2. Chapter 48 of the New York City Charter, as added by vote of the electors at the general election held on November 7, 1989, is amended by adding a new section 1075 to read as follows:
§ 1075. Energy efficiency. a. The department shall ensure that power management functions on all city-owned or operated computers, printers, facsimile machines, and photocopy machines are calibrated to achieve the highest energy savings practicable.
b. All computer monitors and central processing units shall be set to enter into a low power mode after the shortest practicable period of inactivity. The department shall disable any screensavers or other computer programs that may interfere with the capability of a computer monitor or central processing unit to enter into a low power mode. The department may depart from the provisions of this subdivision when compliance would endanger public safety or cause instability in computer systems.
§3. This local law shall take effect 90 days after enactment.
RBU
LS# 7
06/02/2004