As from April 2010, the European Union has laid down new energy regulations that will stop power adaptors for the likes of our laptops, mobile phones and digital music players from wasting too much electricity and apparently this will reduce our electricity bills.
Even though there has been a concentrated effort on getting rid of what is known as ‘phantom power’ wastage, which is the amount of electricity that is still used by some devices when they are in standby mode, there are still some power adaptors that use electricity even when they’re turned off but still plugged in.
Ok so if you’re wondering how, it is because they use external power supplies to convert the high voltage AC (alternating current) from the outlet in the wall into the low voltage DC (direct current) they need.
The external power supplies contain ‘transformers, rectifiers, regulators and smoothing circuits’ that still use up energy when they’re plugged into the socket.
These external power supplies are what the European Union are targeting and according to the European Commission, if nothing is done about their inefficiency, by 2020 these devices in the European Union will have managed to waste enough electricity to power the whole of Lithuania.
Staggering isn’t it and yet I’m sure many people will never have given it a second thought. So what does the European Union want and that manufacturers will have to comply with?
During ‘no load’ situations, which is where the power supply is on but the device it is powering is turned off or not connected to it, to begin with the amount of power that can be wasted will be limited to 0.5 watts.
A year later in 2011 that will be reduced even further to 0.3 watts for power supplies with an output of less than 51 watts such as the likes of mobile phone chargers and mp3 players.
During normal use the amount of wastage allowed will vary according to how much power the device needs. For example, power supplies that are rated at only 1 watt will have to be 56% efficient which rises to 62% if the output is more than 6 volts.
At the other end of the scale, power supplies that have an output of more than 51 watts will have to be 86% efficient rising to 87% if the output is more than 6 volts.
For devices rated between 1 watt and 51 watts there is a sliding scale.
Anything that’s going to cut down energy wastage is great but I can’t help wondering if I’ll actually see a difference in my electricity bill?
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