EPA Proposes Ending Energy Star Program for External Power Supplies, End-Use Products
The EPA wants to terminate the Energy Star program for external power supplies (EPS) by the end of 2010. Among the reasons the agency is citing for yanking the program which began in 2005 is that the market penetration of Energy Star qualified power supplies has crossed 50 percent. With the cancellation of the EPS program, the agency also is proposing closing a partner program for “end-use products” that rely on power supplies but aren’t otherwise covered by an Energy Star program. Such products are allowed to use a version of the Energy Star logo if they incorporate an Energy Star compliant EPS.
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The Energy Star program for power supplies resulted in energy savings of 5 billion kilowatt hours a year and annual green house gas reductions of 1 million metric tons by 2008, the agency said. That year the power supply specification was tightened for version 2.0, it said. “Energy use associated with EPSs nationally is estimated to be 12 billion kWh less per year than it would have been had EPS energy performance stayed where it was in 2005,” the agency said.
Listing reasons for closing the program, the EPA said that further tightening the EPS Energy Star specification would result in “diminishing returns.” The agency is confident that “backsliding” in the energy performance of power supplies would be prevented by the “growing list” of Energy Star product specifications such as those for computers, displays and other audio and video products that will “continue to require the use of highly efficient EPSs along with other performance requirements.” And as the agency covers more products under the Energy Star program, the “scope of the End-Use Products program has been diminishing,” the agency said. Also, EPA is “furthering the goal of moving the market to more efficient power supplies by adding EPS requirements to a suite of existing product specifications."
The agency intends to change Energy Star rules for products that now must use an Energy Star EPS to require an International Efficiency Marketing Protocol’s Level 5 EPS, it said. Energy Star EPSs and end-use products can continue to carry the label until Dec. 31, 2010, the agency said. But no new “partnership agreements” would by accepted after July 15, it said. Comments on the proposal to end the EPS program are due June 18. The EPA will issue its final decision shortly after the comment deadline, it said.