University of California Energy Institute

Personal computers (PCs) are one of the most ubiquitous and indispensable electronic devices in use within California’s homes and businesses. More PCs are estimated to be in use in California than in any other U.S. state. According to the latest published estimates from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 11.5 million PCs were installed in California’s homes (as of 2001) and 6.5 million PCs were installed in California’s commercial buildings (as of 2003) (U.S. DOE 2003, 2006a). Based on these DOE data and recent PC sales data, it was estimated in this research project that as of 2005 nearly 19 million PCs were installed in California homes and businesses and that this number is expected to grow significantly through 2012.

This research project focused on evaluating a set of realistic measures aimed at reducing the life-cycle energy use and GHG emissions associated with operating and maintaining California’s residential and commercial PC stock (hereafter referred to simply as “California’s PC stock”). The term “maintain” is used here to describe the ongoing process of replacing, upgrading, and discarding obsolete PCs within California’s PC stock as necessary. The project employed a life-cycle assessment (LCA) approach to characterize both direct and indirect energy use and GHG emissions. Direct energy use and GHG emissions were defined as the energy use and GHG emissions attributable to the operational electricity consumption of California’s PC stock. Indirect energy use and GHG emissions were defined as the energy use and GHG emissions attributable to activities that support ongoing PC stock maintenance, namely, the manufacture of new PCs and PC components as needed and the end-of-life treatment (i.e., waste disposal and recycling) of obsolete PCs and PC components.

In this research project, the potential reductions in life-cycle energy use and GHG emissions associated with the measures considered were projected through the year 2012. The purpose of this work was to characterize the effectiveness of these measures to inform PC-related policies for near-term energy efficiency improvements and GHG emission reductions in the State of California. Baseline projections were first established for the life-cycle energy use and GHG emissions associated with operating and maintaining California’s PC stock from 2005 to 2012. These baseline projections were made using best-available data from public sources for all key modeling parameters. Whenever possible, ranges for key modeling parameters were established to account for published data variations. Two future scenarios were considered: a low energy use and GHG emissions scenario (“low scenario”) and a high energy use and GHG emissions scenario (“high scenario”). The purpose of the two-scenario approach was to establish preliminary upper and lower bounds on the results based on the feasible data ranges identified from the literature for key modeling parameters. The potential reductions in life-cycle energy use and GHG emissions associated with the measures considered were then projected for each scenario over the same time period.

Commercial PC estimate was derived by: (1) assuming that 8.6 million PCs were installed in commercial buildings in the Pacific Census Region in 2003, based on the U.S. DOE 2003 Commercial Building Energy Use Survey (CBECS) (U.S. DOE 2006), and (2) assuming that 75% of Pacific Census Region commercial sector employment (as defined by the 2003 CBECS) and hence PC usage occurs in California based on employment data from the U.S. Census Bureau (U.S. Census Bureau 2006).