Trade Association Advocates Global Standards for Power Supply Efficiency

The Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) has taken a strong position on voluntary and mandatory standards regulating the minimum acceptable efficiency of power supplies. In an open letter to manufacturers, regulatory agencies, and other participants and stakeholders in the power supply industry, the PSMA has called for the development of a unified set of global standards and testing methods. The letter goes on to say that "PSMA and its members stand ready to provide whatever assistance and guidance is needed to assure that the obtained data is an accurate and thorough reflection of present state of the industry’s products."

This letter is a statement of the unanimous position taken by the PSMA board of directors on this important subject at its meeting in December 2003. In the letter, Arnold Alderman, PSMA’s chairman, pointed out the challenges in developing such standards. "The standards and guidelines should be fair to both supplier and user yet encourage significant improvement in efficiency based on cost-effective technologies we know to be available." In addition, he said, "PSMA encourages further technology development that will provide continuous improvement of power conversion efficiency while respecting both safety standards and the competitive pressures of the commercial world."

While urging the adoption of a unified set of standards, PSMA calls for every effort to be made to avoid compromising the development of improved efficiency standards in favor of the single standard. In other words, PSMA calls for manufacturers and regulatory agencies to work together in ways which will lead to the convergence, over time, of existing individual standards into a single global standard.

Finally, in recognition of the power management challenges of advanced electronic systems, the statement calls for evaluation, wherever possible, of the entire power system for potential efficiency improvement, in addition to examining individual components within the power structure, architecture, conversion and/or conveyance path.

For more information, visit psma.com/HTML/FILES/forums/energy/PSMApositionLtr_2005-01-14.pdf.