The energy conservation potential of power management for fax machines

Measurements of the power requirements and operating profiles of fax machines indicate significant potential for energy conservation through power management. Fax machines were active for only 3.7% of the time they were switched on; 91.8% of time at normal standby power could be eliminated by automatically switching the fax machines into a ‘sleep’ mode after 5 min of inactivity. Such power management could realize savings of $20 per fax machine per year. In addition, 9.3% of fax transactions were halted due to transaction errors, and up to 23.8% of faxed pages were cover sheets. Reducing transaction errors and cover sheet use could realize additional energy, time and paper savings, and reduce telephone charges.