Edison is a power management program that works with the tools in Windows to schedule the power needs of your PC. You can set up different schedules for the PC depending on whether it’s being used or it’s idle and Edison will look after all the normal tricks of switching off the display and hard drive, or suspending the PC all together. There’s also savings calculator that estimates how much CO2 and money you’ve saved. The makers claim that on average a computer using power management can save around $US36 per year.

It’s currently only available for Windows XP or Vista and only for home use, but there is an enterprise version. Be warned, it’s a big download if you don’t have .NET 2.0 on your PC.

An expert in the PC power management field, Verdiem identified years ago that the easiest way to eliminate energy waste was to optimize a PC’s power settings by having them correspond to its schedule of use. Edison allows you to set a schedule that takes into account how you typically use and do not use your computer. Once your schedule is set, Edison can optimize your power settings to take maximum advantage of that schedule.

Tags: edison+software, green+computing