Eco design directives focus on improvement of products design, to decrease their influance on environment during all phases of product life. It can be said, that the goal of all these improvements is mainly decreasing of energy used at production, during life-time and at recyclation as well as a minimalization of waste created during production and after a product life-time. The purpose of eco design is also to reach energy efficiency already during a production phase. For example a relatively small improvement in product energy saving features shouldn´t be reached for the price of inadequate energy demanding production process. In this short article we would like to acquaint you with some basic principles and demands for eco design.
A basic framework for setting of eco-design requirements established a directive 2005/32/EC in July 2005 which used a term EuP – Energy using Products. Later a 2009/125/EC, directive followed, which established a term ErP for Energy-related Products. Term ErP was defined because it has shown that more stringent demands should be adopted also for products which don´t necessarily use energy but they are intended to be a part of energy using products.
Above mentioned directive was further amended by a 278/2009/EC, regulation, setting requirements also for external power supplies. A new thing is, that manufacturer must provide in the technical documentation a value of efficiency in 4 load conditions. It means efficiency in a load at 100%, 75%, 50% and 25 %. Also this regulation sets minimum required average active efficiency according to a total power of a power supply. Very actual is now a 642/2009/EC regulation about requirements for eco design of televisions. Besides other, it specifies, that from August 20-th 2011 will come into force a requirement of maximum 0.50 W power consumption in a standard standby mode.
The overall legislative is quite extensive, all legislation is available at the official EU website and you can find a detailed description at EU website dedicated to energy and eco-design. Introducing these directives into praxis means for producers an obligation to be familiar with directives relevant for their products. Besides it means, that when you use for your carefully designed device a ready-made electronic module, like for example external power supply, AC/DC or DC/DC module we suggest you to check whether it meets eco-design requirements.
In SOS electronic we take care to offer only EuP compliant components. We believe that with modern energy effective components from our offer, you will also be able to design and produce devices which will be considerate to environment.
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