Energy efficient IT efforts yield significant savings, yet millions are still wasted every year, shows a survey from IT reseller CDW (www.cdw.com).

CDW's 2009 Energy Efficient IT Report, based on a survey of 752 IT professionals who purchase IT equipment, found that organisations are doing more to improve energy efficiency in IT compared to 2008.

As a result, those firms are realising significant savings in their energy bills. However, CDW also found that energy efficiency became less of a consideration in the IT purchase decision year-over-year, highlighting recessionary pressures to reduce equipment costs, even at the expense of greater, longer-term energy savings.

"IT executives appear to be caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place," said CDW vice president Mark Gambill. "While IT executives are trying to do the right thing – buy the best technology with the right capabilities at the best price – some may sacrifice greater long-term savings from reduced energy use by downgrading the importance of energy efficiency in the purchase equation."

The 2009 CDW Energy Efficient IT Report revealed that 52% of IT professionals whose organisations have energy management initiatives, successfully reduced their total IT energy costs, up from 39% in 2008.

Respondents reduced energy costs using measures including:

• Buying equipment with low-power/low-wattage processors
• Using network-based power management tools
• Using software tools within uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) to monitor power demand and energy use
• Monitoring data centres remotely to keep lights off when employees are not on site
• Managing cable placement to reduce demand on cooling systems
• Implementing server and storage virtualisation to reduce the number of servers and storage devices drawing power

Read the CDW Report.