Sinrace Power Supply Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.

The new rules adopt the methods of CEC and DoE at the same time
Last March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will begin revising the current Energy Star Battery Charger (BCS) for energy efficiency. At the time, the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) are actively developing their independent BCS energy efficiency. In December last year, Energy Star BCS released its draft guidelines for energy efficiency. It can be seen, they plan to use a small DoE system (battery capacity 1 EB ≤ 3 kWh), while using the large CEC system (EB> 3kWh).

The proposed specification extends the product coverage, product categories of consumer BCS and industrial BCS products which is built-in or removable battery, including hand-held power tools and electrical appliances, mobile communication equipment and power equipment. This covers wide range of products from cordless telephones, mobile phones and e-book reader to a wide range of golf carts and forklifts products. EBA divide BCS products which is brought into the scope into three groups (see Table 1)by EB. But it does not include the some products which have been covered by other Energy Star specification , inductive coupling BCS , emergency and standby BCS ,and BCS for electric vehicle.

For calculation EB ≤ 3 kWh BCS products energy efficiency indicators based on equipment energy consumption, the latter is the measure of value for the BCS annual energy consumption (kWh / year). The calculation is: In the 24-hour period, multiply the energy consumption and expected holding time and then sum them when BCS is at activation, maintenance and no battery mode(based on users’ average service data), Table 2 lists the proposed limits of Energy Star specification.
 
For encouraging products redesigned to reduce energy waste non-active mode, and only the products which can totally eliminate power consumption in non-battery mode are consistent with UEC (Figure 3). These limits have been added to Table 2 UECMAX limits.
 
Note: Sometimes the efficiency indicators convergence can cause some minor problems. In the December conference call, stakeholders asked EPA to postpone the version finalized time of the Energy Star specification , until the DoE to complete the formulation of the corresponding norms, because it should be consistent between the norms and DoE's proposed specification. EPA agreed to this request, it will lead to delay finalization of the specification. Therefore, the above data may change, depending on the DoE's final report.
activation, maintenance and power consumption limits in no-battery mode, but can also use the charge to return factor (CRF) limit (CRF is the ratio of ampere hours which return to the battery in charge cycle and discharge ampere hours which is provided by battery in discharger cycle.) EB> 10 kWh of BCS products offer the maximum limit as shown in Table 4.

This year, EPA hopes it's earlier to complete the finalized version of the Energy Star specification, and make new products entered into force in June 2011, the existing products covered by the BCS specification will take effect in March 2012.