"We really care about delivering dollar savings to consumers. We know that is important, perhaps more now than ever. But we're also really concerned about global warming," Kaplan said.

Specifications have been set for PCs, laptops and other devices, with power allowances available at Energy Star's .

The kilowatt-per-hour allowance for laptops has been set between 40 kilowatts per hour and 88.5 KwH based on three modes: standby, active and sleep modes. The laptop categorization takes into account the CPU, the number of cores, and other hardware including graphics cards. The power allowance for desktops has been set between 148 KwH and 234 KwH. The EPA has also set power allowances for monitors, small-scale servers like media servers and enterprise devices like thin clients.

The EPA hopes to soon launch specifications for home networking equipment like routers and modems, Kaplan said. The agency is also investigating enterprise-level UPS (uninterruptible power supplies) and storage energy specifications. The EPA in May launched the first Energy Star specifications for enterprise servers.

Kaplan expects to see a quick uptake of Energy Star 5.0 by PC makers, who were cooperative in setting the specifications. The U.S. government and some corporations require Energy Star compliance, so the PC makers are likely eager to make their products Energy Star 5.0-compliant soon, she said.