The ever-moving goalposts of efficiency standards for external power supplies

10/06/2016


The ever-moving goalposts of efficiency standards for external power supplies

In the October 2016 EDN Power Forward blog post, Jeff Schnabel, CUI’s VP of Global Marketing, outlines the constantly changing landscape surrounding the efficiency standards for external power supplies and what it means for OEMs.

The article begins, “People today are familiar with the challenges associated with our use of energy, and in particular the need to control greenhouse-gas emissions and use energy efficiently. Anyone placing a hand on a warm notebook power adapter is likely to be thinking of the energy being wasted and its effect on the environment.”

The history of efficiency standards is then highlighted paying special attention to the “leapfrog” progress in environmental legislation over the years. For instance, in February 2016 the US implemented the more stringent Level VI standards only to have the EU propose their own CoC Tier 2 requirements that further tightened the standards introduced in the US. He delves further into the upcoming CoC Tier 2 standards and concludes that OEMs constantly need to stay on top of these changing regulations to ensure that their products are in compliance in each region where they are sold.

Read the full article on EDN.com