HP plots course for doubling renewable power use

This announcement is designed to complement HP’s goal to reduce energy consumption and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions from HP-owned and HP-leased facilities worldwide to 16% below 2005 levels by 2010. In 2007, HP successfully met its goal to increase renewable energy purchases, buying 61.4 million kilowatt hours (kwh) of renewable energy and renewable energy credits in the US.

To reduce its carbon footprint, HP is relying on diversified renewable energy resources, improving energy efficiency and placing a strong emphasis on energy reduction and optimization at a number of its facilities around the world. The company recently installed a 1.1-megawatt solar power system at its facility in San Diego that is projected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 60 million pounds over the next 30 years. This is equivalent to providing electricity to 3,800 homes or removing more than 5,250 cars from the road over the same time period.

Other eco-initiatives from HP include research and development into sustainable IT ecosystems including areas such as nanowire photonics, where it is aiming to increase the efficiency of solar cells to more than 20%.

As well as reducing energy required for manufacturing and distributing products, HP plans to cut power consumption on its volume desktop and notebook PC families by 25%, relative to 2005.