The next time you design your site you may want to consider not using an all white design. Why you may ask? Your monitor uses more energy to display an all white site compared to a dark or black site. In fact an all white page uses about 74 watts of power where an all black page uses only 59 watts.
 In the early days of the Internet there were tons of grey and black background sites but today the majority of the sites have lots and lots of white space.
So how much power could you save by switching to black?
Let’s use Google for example. They receive 200 million or more queries per day. If they were to switch to an all black design like in the picture they would 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day. An average household uses about 10,655 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. Therefore, the energy saved per day could power about as much electricity as 1850 to 2500 households use in a year.Â
Sonia
February 12, 2007 7:05 pm
That is an interesting idea, though an ambient lighting may also have a part in it. May be now is time to introduce Internet Light Saving Time :)
Also a power management scheme may be set to wake the monitor up only when it’s needed. Power saving is more critical for mobile phones, that are powered from the batteries.
Thinkreferrals
February 13, 2007 10:52 am
I love this data, I design sites and have heard both sides of that argument. Many people say that having a dark background takes longer to load and doesn’t hold a bright cheery type atmosphere.
It is a tough call to decide on the dark or the light. I recently changed my site to a lighter design with a white background instead of Black which received some complaints. Hmmmm, now I feel guilty.
Matt
February 13, 2007 5:54 pm
Interesting… Does this also apply to darker coloured sites vs. lighter coloured sites? Probably… Maybe someone should start a petition to Google to make their pages have Black backgrounds on them. :P Just kidding…
Sonia
February 13, 2007 10:05 pm
Love the data – don’t forget the credit. What kind of love is that? Linkbait love? ;)
Notes on Design » Blog Archive » Can Web Design Be Green?
February 15, 2007 8:35 am
[...] BlueFur.com says yes. Rising Phoenix Design has a lot of information on how dark web colors optimize computer screen power usage. Altiustutasarim.com has some tips on how web designers can be more green. Eirbyte in Ireland goes so far as to use wind and solar power to juice their design studio, which is pretty neat. And renourish is a site dedicated to providing designers with information on sustainable and more environmentally conscious design craft. [...]