For schools

PC Power Management for Schools

Switch off every PC in every ICT suite, classroom and office when nobody's using them. Automatically, every night, every weekend and every holiday.

  • Cut the cost of PCs left on overnight and through the holidays
  • Never shuts down a PC while a teacher is still logged on
  • Real savings figures for your energy and climate reports
  • Collects no pupil or staff data. Nothing leaves your network
Start free trial School pricing

One licence covers every PC in your school, from £41.25 a month.

The pupils go home at 3pm. Do your PCs?

Even in term time, a school is closed for around 123 hours a week. Every evening, every night and every weekend, the building is empty. If the PCs are still on, you're paying to power them for nobody.

It happens quietly. The last lesson ends, the class logs off, and thirty PCs stay on until the morning. On Fridays they stay on until Monday. Then come the holidays, when a room nobody checked can run for weeks.

Shutdown scripts help, until they don't. A PC waiting on an update or a program that won't close keeps it running, and there's no record of which ones were missed. TaskForceCO2 takes care of it, room by room, and shows you exactly what it saved.

Where the budget goes

  • PCs left on every evening after the pupils go home
  • ICT suites left on from Friday afternoon to Monday morning
  • Classroom and office PCs running through the holidays
  • Scripts that hang on updates or open software
  • No figures to put in your energy or climate report

What TaskForceCO2 does about it

  • Different schedules for suites, classrooms, library and offices
  • Only shuts down PCs nobody is logged on to, so after-school work is safe
  • Doesn't rely on the standard Windows shutdown, so stuck PCs still go off
  • Keeps servers, reception and other essential PCs on
  • Wakes PCs before the school day, and keeps them off all holiday

Less waste. Lower bills. Nobody has to remember anything.

School network manager setting up PC power management

Used by school IT teams since 2009.

TaskForceCO2 is built for the way school networks work: Windows PCs, Active Directory, and an IT team with plenty of other jobs to do. Set it up once and it runs quietly in the background.

123 hoursa week your school is closed, even in term time
£41.25a month covers every PC in your school
Zeropupil or staff data collected
A school story

Does this sound like your school?

Two minutes to read. It might save you a lot more than that.

Dan's story

Network Manager, secondary school. Click to open.
An illustrative example. Dan isn't a real customer, but his school might look a lot like yours.

Dan is the network manager at a secondary school with about 1,100 students. He looks after around 400 PCs: four ICT suites, the library, a PC in every classroom, the staff room and the school offices. There's Dan and one technician.

He has a shutdown script. It's been there longer than he has.

Monday mornings

Every Monday, Dan did the same walk round before registration. And most Mondays, at least one ICT suite was humming away, thirty PCs that had been on since Friday's last lesson.

"Every Monday I'd find two ICT suites had been on since Friday afternoon. I'd turn them off and think, I wonder what that cost."

Then the school's energy bill landed on the business manager's desk, and she came to find him. The head had asked her to cut costs and to put real numbers into the school's climate action plan. Her question was simple: how much are our computers costing us when nobody's using them?

Dan didn't have an answer.

What didn't work

He tried making the script more aggressive. It shut down a teacher's PC at half past four while she was writing reports, and she lost an hour's work. A poster asking staff to switch off at the end of the day lasted until half term.

What he found

Dan installed TaskForceCO2 on a server and brought every PC in from Active Directory, using the OUs he already had. He set up groups to match the building. The ICT suites shut down at 5pm, but only if nobody is logged on. Classroom PCs follow at 6pm. The library stays on until its late opening finishes. The servers, reception and the CCTV PC are in a group that never shuts down. Everything wakes at 7:30am, ready for registration.

He also set up a holiday scheme once. Now, just before the school breaks up, he applies it and the building stays dark until term starts. The PCs that used to hang on a stuck update go off now too, because TaskForceCO2 doesn't rely on the standard Windows shutdown.

What changed

Dan's Monday walk round is over. The business manager got her numbers, straight from the savings report, and they went into the climate action plan word for word. The teacher writing reports at half past four didn't notice anything, because her PC waits until she logs off.

The rough maths. About 200 of the school's PCs were regularly being left on, for around 100 hours a week across a 39-week school year. At roughly 50 watts each and 25p per kWh, that's close to £9,700 a year, before you count the holidays.

The School Site Licence is £495 a year for every PC in the school. It paid for itself in the first month.

How many of your PCs were on last weekend?

Start free trial School pricing

Set up around your school day

Group your PCs the way your building works, and give each group its own rules.

1

ICT suites & classrooms

Shut down after the last lesson, but only once nobody is logged on. Wake before registration so everything is ready.

Safe for after-school work
2

Library & offices

Give them later times to match late opening and office hours. Several power events per PC, per day if you need them.

Your timings, room by room
3

Holidays

Set up a holiday scheme once, then apply it just before you break up. The building stays dark until term starts.

Set it up once, use it every holiday
Data protection

No pupil data. Nothing leaves your network.

TaskForceCO2 runs entirely inside your school network. There's no cloud service to sign pupils up to and nothing for your DPO to worry about.

GDPR friendly

TaskForceCO2 collects no user data, so there's no pupil or staff information to protect.

Works offline

If your internet connection drops, the power schedules carry on as normal.

Nothing to attack from outside

No cloud endpoints means no external attack surface on your school network.

School Pricing

No per-PC charges. Every PC is covered. All prices are per year.

Most popular

School Site Licence

One school, every PC

£495

per year

  • Unlimited PCs at one school
  • ICT suites, classrooms, library and offices
  • Licence, support and upgrades for 1 year
  • No per-PC charges
  • Works out at £41.25 a month
Buy School Licence Order with a purchase order

MAT / Trust Licence

Every school in one trust or group

£2,995

per year

  • Unlimited PCs in every school in the trust
  • One licence, managed centrally or by each school
  • Licence, support and upgrades for 1 year
  • No per-PC charges
  • Works out at £249.58 a month
Buy Trust Licence Order with a purchase order

Paying by purchase order?

Most schools do, and that's fine

  • Fill in our online order form
  • Add your purchase order number
  • Print it or save it as a PDF for your records
  • We confirm and invoice the school directly
Open the order form

Prices in GBP. Licences don't renew automatically. Paying by purchase order? Use the school order form.

Questions Schools Ask

How much does it cost per PC?

There's no per-PC charge. The School Site Licence is £495 a year for every PC in your school, which is less than £41.25 a month.

For a school with 400 PCs, that's about £0.10 per PC per month.

Will it shut down a PC while a teacher is using it?

Not if you don't want it to. You can set any group to shut down only when nobody is logged on, so a teacher working late keeps their PC until they log off. You choose this group by group.

What about the holidays?

Set up a holiday scheme once, then apply it just before you break up. PCs stay off for the whole holiday, with no morning wake-ups, until you switch back to your term-time scheme.

Can we keep some PCs on?

Yes. Put servers, reception, CCTV or any other PCs that must stay on into their own group with no power scheme, and TaskForceCO2 leaves them alone.

Does it collect any pupil or staff data?

No. TaskForceCO2 runs entirely inside your school network and collects no user data. Nothing is sent to us or to any cloud service.

Which devices does it work with?

Windows PCs on your school network, added from Active Directory (by OU), from the network or by IP address. It doesn't manage Chromebooks or iPads, and it isn't designed for devices that are only managed through the cloud.

We're a multi-academy trust. Do we need a licence for each school?

No. The MAT / Trust Licence covers every PC in every school in the trust for £2,995 a year. It works out cheaper than separate school licences once you have seven or more schools.

Can we pay by purchase order?

Yes. Fill in the school order form, add your purchase order number and submit it. You can print it or save a PDF for your records. We'll confirm the order and invoice the school directly, and we can send our VAT and bank details whenever your finance team needs them.

Free trial

Try TaskForceCO2 on your school network

A fully working 14-day trial on up to 250 PCs. Getting it takes a couple of minutes, and there's nothing to pay.

  1. Click Start free trialIt takes you to the short trial form.
  2. Fill in your detailsYour name, job title, school, school email and how many PCs you have.
  3. Confirm your emailWe email you a link within seconds. Click it to confirm your address.
  4. Get your licence key and downloadsThey appear on screen straight away, and we email them to you too.
  5. Install and add your PCsStart with one ICT suite and watch the savings report fill up.
Start free trial

What you get

The same software schools already use, on your network, with your PCs.

  • Fully working for 14 days, on up to 250 PCs
  • Licence key and downloads emailed to you
  • Installs on your own server or admin PC
  • Savings reports from your own PCs
  • Help from us if you get stuck
  • No card details needed
Get my free trial

Questions first? Email salesteam@taskforceco2.com