Richardson continues to enhance the Energy Efficiency of municipal operations, through multiple avenues:

• Energy Efficiency Efforts at Public Facilities
  Recent HVAC improvements at City Hall and the Library resulted in a 20% reduction in electrical use. Lighting retrofits resulted in another 25% in savings and additional retrofits are anticipated. Research is currently under way on the use of LEDs (light emitting diodes) for street lamp lighting and the use of solar paneling for supplemental office power.
  
  
• Server Consolidation
  By consolidating and reducing the total number of online file and application servers, Information Services has reduced their server electric load by approximately 30% over the past two years.
  
  
• Workstation Energy Management
  By employing newer units, computer resources can be idled or shutdown during periods of low use, resulting in substantial energy savings.
  
  
• “Green” computers
  Richardson has a 4-year PC rotation policy, new workstations and computers are being replaced on a regular basis with systems that have reduced wattage required by CPUs, hard drives, and memory by as much as 50%. Information Services expects to deploy many of these Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT)-approved hardware products over the next several years.
  
  
• Monitor replacement
  By switching to flat-panel Energy Star compliant LCD monitors, overall energy consumption by these devices has been greatly reduced. Used in concert with energy management, even more savings is realized.
  
  
• Datacenter consolidation
  By concentrating resources into fewer locations, fewer servers and support technology is required, resulting in, reduced energy footprint.
  
  
• Reducing cooling loads in data centers
  By raising the minimum permitted temperatures in City datacenters, the costs of cooling facilities and electric consumption have been decreased.
  
  
• Storage Array Technology
  The implementation of new storage arrays, permits Information Services to significantly reduce the number of power-hungry hard drives employed in server systems, and works hand in hand with virtualized server systems and server blade technology, to further reduce power consumption.
  
  
• Paperless Technology
  Using software to scan physical documents, drawings & maps for archive and retrieval allows the City to move additional applications towards paperless wherever applicable.
  
  
• Field Applications
  Re-engineering data processing and data input methods so that City Workers can enter and access data in the field has reduced paper logs and the number of trips necessary to perform basic functions in the Animal Shelter, Neighborhood Services and Public Safety functions.
  
  
• Web Applications
  In addition to providing an ever-increasing amount of information, the City website allows transactions and online customer services. Citizens can pay utility and traffic tickets, purchase building permits, submit issues to departments, see animals ready for adoption, and even purchase tickets to Eisemann Center events. Time and energy is saved as citizens no longer have to visit City Hall for a variety of needs.