CE Makers Irked By Move to Advance Effective Date of Energy Star 5.0 TV Spec
The CE industry is voicing concerns over EPA plans to advance the effective date for version 5.0 of the Energy Star TV specification that was originally to take effect in May 2012. A new date has not yet been announced. For the first time in any Energy Star specification for consumer electronics, the TV version 5.0 will place a hard energy use cap of 108 watts. TV makers haven’t been “consulted at all,” about the proposed acceleration of the specification, said a CE executive.
The agency will send out a proposal to move up the effective date of the TV spec this week, Katharine Kaplan, Energy Star product manager, told us. “We will propose a date at that time and take comment.” The reasons for the move include information from CE retailers that about 75 percent of TV models they're selling meet Energy Star 4.0, she said. The huge market penetration of Energy Star 4.0 has drawn media criticism as well, she said. The agency also got requests from utilities promoting energy-efficient TVs to advance the effective date of version 5.0, Kaplan said.
The agency believes it “clearly articulated” to industry new requirements for qualification and verification testing, including for manufacturer-owned in-house labs, Kaplan said. But based on “feedback from our members so far there appears to be more confusion than clarity at this point, only a month and half before these changes take effect,” said Douglas Johnson, CEA vice president of technology policy. The agency is concerned “about the feedback we are getting from some of our very active partners that they didn’t understand” the new requirements,” Kaplan said. But it has no intention “at this time” to put off the January effective date for in-house labs to meet the new rules, she said.
On a Friday stakeholder conference call, an IT maker said the EPA announced “rather late in the program” different rules for manufacturer-owned labs compared with third-party accredited labs. CE makers were “surprised” that EPA was mandating a “much higher level of scrutiny” for manufacturer labs than we anticipated,” an official of a trade group told us. The requirement that testing in manufacturer labs be witnessed by an EPA recognized certification body would make testing “more expensive and problematic” in those labs, he said. Kaplan told stakeholders on the call that the agency had no “desire to spring surprises” and is willing to “engage with you as much as we need to” so the rules are made clear.
The new testing rules taking effect in January apply only to Energy Star products shipped in the U.S., Energy Star Product Manager Kathleen Vokes said on the call. There are differences in the way the Energy Star program operates in the U.S., Europe and other countries, she said. So manufacturers selling an Energy Star product in the U.S. have to make sure that they have it certified for sale in the U.S., she said. But the agency is not “looking to track the shipments coming from the EU,” she said.
All existing Energy Star manufacturers must “recommit” to the program by Nov. 30 to avoid “partnership interruption,” Vokes said. All new products must be certified by an EPA-recognized certification body after Jan. 1 after testing in an agency-recognized lab. Existing products for which specification changes are expected in 2011 or 2012 will not able to carry the Energy Star label after the effective date of the new specification unless it’s third-party certified, she said. All existing products for which no specification change is expected before 2012 must be submitted for verification testing before March 31, she said.
The EPA has so far granted recognition for nine certification bodies, with at least one for each Energy Star product category, she said. Forty-one labs in five counties also have been given recognition, she said.