The idea is to bring existing BOINC users together as a team.
Anyone new to BOINC who doesn't pay the electricity bill should seek the permission of the person paying the bill as there may be a small overhead involved.
This overhead shouldn't be noticeable in the scheme of things, unless you deliberately leave your computer on for the sake of running BOINC continuously; which is something I wouldn't recommend. I would however, recommend that you try to offset any perceived increase through energy savings elsewhere, such as ensuring you don't leave the TV on standby.
Is this overhead a bad thing? well, I don't think so, in fact I think it can be harnessed for the good! You see I personally use BOINC as a measure of my forgetfulness toward energy conservation, and as a means to penalise my wastage of electricity. The penalty is in the form of a tip to the electricity company for whatever good cause BOINC was working on, which for me is the price of a few hot cups of tea, because I only do little bits at a time, and then not deliberately.
Confused? Yes, I said not deliberately, because I aim to reduce the amount of screen saver activity that takes place, and when I fail, I take the view that without BOINC I am deliberately wasting electricity, but with BOINC at least I know the wastage is recycled into doing some useful work. Something I consider better than leaving the computer idle for double the time doing absolutely no useful work whatsoever.
As I don't want to tip the electricity company, I either sleep the computer or I switch it off completely between sessions. BOINC kicks in when I forget to do that, and the stats become a measurement of my forgetfulness, or degree of wastage.
So, strange as it may seem, I use BOINC to remind me to conserve electricity
* will someone switch the lights on *