The Low Carbon ICT project will reduce the University of Oxford’s carbon footprint that results from the operation of its ICT infrastructure. It is likely to reduce annual power use by a minimum of 2GWh, result in an annual saving in power costs of c. £200k, and save the production of over 1100 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. Facilities will be created and rolled out which enable end-users, research projects, and system administrators to turn computers off when not needed, and automatically back on when they are required Virtualisation services will be developed to reduce the total number of CPUs necessary to run the University services, thereby not only saving the power to run and cool them, but also reducing the carbon footprint by requiring fewer physical machines to be purchased. This project will monitor, evaluate and disseminate findings about the implementation of the new technologies that will significantly reduce the environmental impact of Oxford’s ICT infrastructure. It will report directly into the University’s Environmental Panel, promote the approach taken to ensure widespread take-up, host two conferences and develop training materials.

Low Carbon ICT


Start date: 1 November 2007

End date: 1 March 2009

Funding programme: Institutional Exemplars Programme

Project website: http://wiki.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg-public/Low_Carbon_ICT_Project

JISC theme(s): e-Administration, Access management, e-Learning

Committees: JISC Integrated Information Environment committee, JISC Learning and Teaching committee, JISC Organisational Support committee

Overview

The purpose of this project is to provide a practical exemplar of how an institution can implement both the policies and the technologies to conserve energy used by desktop and server hardware with the minimum of disruption to users and system administrators alike.

Aims and objectives 

The aim of this project is to develop, monitor and analyse the effectiveness of virtualisation and wake-on-LAN services in reducing the carbon footprint of the University. The objective is to serve as an exemplar project for other educational organisations that want to reduce the environmental impact of their information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure.

Project methodology

The project brings together research, communications, training and technical expertise from across the University. The project team will develop and roll out an institution-wide wake-on-LAN service, then monitor and evaluate this service alongside the recently released virtualization services. The project will develop all aspects of a energy-reduction service, from development to training.

For more information visit the project website

project staff

Project Lead
  • Last updated on 07/01/09 by Kerry Ann Down