All stakeholders agree that the level VI efficiency requirements are very stringent and full compliance will require either new components in the output stage (synchronous rectification) or new designs of the EPS. This will add complexity and cost to the product. For the gain in efficiency that is realized, there will be loss in terms of additional cost. So the central question for any government mandated change remains same; what are the costs and what are benefits?

A survey and some research on this new regulation have provided two views on the ruling; one from the business community and another from the environmental community, and they are starkly different.

The power supply industry is a relatively low margin business. External power supplies, typically a low-end, high-volume product, have less than 10% gross margin. This is one of the lowest margins in the power supply product spectrum. By adding cost and complexity to these products, the suppliers express concerns about further reducing this already low profit margin. As a result, the EPS suppliers are not happy about this new ruling, viewing it with dubious skepticism. One email I received may be a common reflection of the community's sentiment:

"... This legislation (DOE level 6 requirement for External Power Supplies) goes into effect on February 2016. It is the fourth legislative requirement in the last 10 years resulting in massive redesign activity and product obsolescence, this time for very little real gain in energy savings. The original legislative requirements were calculated to save a couple of power plants. However there are tons of existing products that are not compliant to the current standard. I think the new version will probably save less than a couple of days output from one power plant while there is still no requirements for internal power supplies. Also the European Union proposed legislation is not the same...”

On the other hand, environmentalists are in favor of this ruling. The Natural Resources Defense Center's (NRDC) web site states:

"... NRDC commends the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for issuing new efficiency standards for external power supplies – those black boxes that connect many of our electronic and other household devices to wall outlets – which will save Americans $300 million annually in the form of reduced electricity bills and avoid the need for a large (500 MW) power plant, reducing the toxic air pollution that impacts our health and the carbon pollution that destabilizes our climate. It is a great step forward to meeting President Obama's climate action plan goal of 3 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions reductions from appliance efficiency standards by 2030..."

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), as described on Wikipedia, is a New York City-based, non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Beijing. Founded in 1970, NRDC today has 1.4 million members and online activists nationwide and a staff of more than 400 lawyers, scientists and other policy experts.

Every piece of regulation has its proponents, often non-profit environmental groups, and with the opponents, usually the for-profit business community. This is another argument between the industry groups focused on profits versus the public good focused on the environment.

When DOE (or other such entities) propose legislation related to increasing the efficiency of electronic products and thus reducing the power consumption of the equipment, it invites commentary from relevant organizations and companies - the stakeholders -from both sides of the argument. With the current concerns of global warming linked to greenhouse gases, there is a strong push to regulate various products that consume significant amount of electricity. By reducing the amount of electricity consumed, the argument states that fewer power plants will be required. But unfortunately, there is no uniform application of the law across all products nor across all the countries. The competitive industry structure is global and good intentions of one entity in a geographic area through regulation could be undermined by lax regulations or non-regulation by entities in other areas.

While the US DOE enacted stringent level VI efficiency requirement with some consternation of the power supply business community, the Australian government repealed a much-maligned carbon tax on their nation's worst greenhouse gas polluters on July17th, to the dismay of environmental community.

So the question remains. Regulating Efficiency to help the environment: is it good, or bad?

Provided by Mohan Mankikar, President, Micro-Tech Consultants

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