Energy Star to Look at Opportunities to Address Product Lifecycle Issues
As it rolls out new or revised Energy Star specifications, the EPA will look for opportunities to address lifecycle issues of Energy Star products, an agency official told us. A top-level review of Energy Star products is under way and “one thing we are working on is to flag products that have significant greenhouse gas emissions outside of the use phase, associated either with manufacturing, transport” or disposal, said Katharine Kaplan, Energy Star product manager. A first draft of the revised Energy Star specification for battery chargers released last week seeks to deal with the products’ disposal and recycling issues.
Energy Star is flagging products “where we think there are opportunities for unintended consequences,” Kaplan said. An Energy Star device “might be great in the use phase but might be not as desirable when you look at the whole life cycle and the climate impacts,” she said. “Also, there may be ways that we could reward or encourage manufacturers to reduce the greenhouse gases of products in phases other than the use phase. We are looking for ways that we can deliver additional environmental benefits to the consumer and leverage the Energy Star brand to do so.”
In the draft battery charger specification, the EPA said, it’s considering “accounting for non-use phase environmental impacts” of battery charger systems. The agency is seeking stakeholders’ comments on the devices’ “lifetime issues” including recycling infrastructure now available and the “performance” of such facilities, especially for lead-acid batteries and products that the Department of Energy has categoried as class 5 and 6 devices, the EPA said.
The agency said it’s targeting the “widest practical range” of battery chargers in the specification to get the “greatest energy savings opportunity.” They include low-power battery charger systems for detachable batteries, standard-size batteries, heat, light and motion products, those used for cellular phones and other handheld devices, and those used in golf carts and industrial equipment. Excluded are battery charger systems for products covered under other Energy Star specification such as notebook computers, it said.
The proposed specification draws from parallel efforts by the Department of Energy and other government agencies, it said. The EPA is proposing to divide battery chargers into classes based on battery energy and voltage, as was being done by the DOE, it said. The specification sets energy use and modal limits for the devices. For systems with battery energy of 10 kilowatt-hours or less, the agency has proposed to harmonize energy use limits with those proposed in DOE’s Preliminary Analysis of Battery Chargers. For those with battery energy higher than 10 kilowatt-hours, a “multi-metric” approach is proposed with efficiency and power limits for each mode. The agency said it’s proposing incentives for products that eliminate energy consumption in “maintenance or no-battery” modes, providing allowances that can be added to energy consumption limits. The incentive is to encourage device makers to develop products that automatically disconnects the “transformer primary winding” once the battery has reached full charge or has been removed from the charger, the EPA said.
The specification will be completed in June, Kaplan said in a letter to stakeholders. The agency said it will take stakeholder comments until Jan. 15 and hold a webinar Tuesday to discuss preliminary product-testing results.