[LINK] external power supplies

Geoffrey Ramadan gramadan at umd.com.au
Sun Jan 6 12:03:30 AEDT 2008


Jan Whitaker wrote:
> Interesting article about the potential worldwide ban of external 
> power supplies and why that would be a bad idea. Relates to recent 
> discussion about how efficient they are. The answers may be in here. 
> I'm not an electrical engineer so it will take more knowledgeable 
> linkers than me to figure it out.
> http://sound.westhost.com/articles/external-psu.htm
>
Done some research on this (noting that we use a lot of external power 
supplies in our business).

1) The regulatory aspect of this can be found at:
http://www.energyrating.gov.au/library/details200702-ris-eps.html

"This is the regulatory impact statement for the introduction of Minimum 
Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) for external power supplies (EPS) as 
typically imported and sold in Australia and New Zealand. This includes 
importation of external power supplies by themselves and importation as 
part of a product package.

It is important to note that this document applies to external power 
supplies only, not the myriad of appliances and products with which they 
are used.

In 2004 the Australian Greenhouse Office entered into a Memorandum of 
Understanding with the US EPA Energy Star Program, California 
Electricity Commission and China Certification Center for Energy 
Conservation Products (CECP) to agree upon harmonized test methods and 
energy performance marking of external power supplies. This document is 
based upon the agreed harmonized test methods and energy performance 
marking."

2) The original concern expressed in Jan's email relate to the 
transformer based power supplies. In particular that they need to meet 
minimum no-load conditions as well as efficiency MEPS (Minimum Energy 
Performance Standards).

This standard will make it impossible for transformers to be used as 
External Power Supplies, and hence the need to migrate to Switch Mode 
Power Supplies. The original article above puts a strong arguments 
against this.

3) Fortunately, are revised impact statement has been recently released.
http://www.energyrating.gov.au/library/details200707-revised-ris-eps.html

Where the Regulators have agreed NOT to include this requirement of 
meeting no-load minimums, thus the issue is diffused. i.e. transformer 
based External Powers Supplies will be able to meet the standard.

4) The commencement date for this new scheme will be 1st Oct 2008. I 
don't expect the public will notice anything. The onus is on the 
manufacturers and importers to ensure compliance. Though I expect the 
COST of these will go up to cover the cost of compliance and design 
changes. Given that External Power Suppliers and in particular plug 
packs are low cost anyway, this should not be significant.

Reg
Geoffrey Ramadan B.E.(Elec)
Chairman, Automatic Data Capture Association (www.adca.com.au)
and
Managing Director, Unique Micro Design (www.umd.com.au)






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