[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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