DOE Initiates Action on TV Test Procedure, Battery Charger Standards
The Department of Energy is seeking public comment on a rulemaking proposal to develop a test procedure for TVs. The department in October repealed, at the behest of the CEA and the California Energy Commission, what was considered an outmoded test procedure it adopted in 1979. Separately, the DOE scheduled a public meeting in Washington Oct. 13 to discuss a preliminary technical report on energy conservation standards for battery chargers and non-class A external power supplies, it said.
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The DOE rulemaking is focused on TVs in the active mode and not in the low-power modes, DOE said. The CEA wanted the agency to adopt the International Electrotechnical Commission’s test procedure IEC 62087-2008, while the California Energy Commission (CEC) petitioned the department for repealing its 1979 test procedure and its definition of a TV, the DOE said. The rulemaking process is to “assure that the test procedure standards are modernized to be able to capture the energy consumption of current TVs on the market,” it said.
The CEC adopted TV standards and test procedures in November, and they are set to go into effect in January. The DOE has announced its intention to develop federal energy standards for TVs. Among the most widely used test procedures for TVs are IEC 62087 and those contained in Energy Star 4.1, the DOE said. The CEA’s test procedure, CEA-2037, relies heavily on the IEC and Energy Star test procedures, it said.
One of issues that DOE is seeking comment on is how to test 3D TVs. The IEC and Energy Star test procedure are meant to test only two dimensional images, the agency said. But 3D technology is becoming popular and the DOE is “unaware of any existing test methods for accurately measuring the energy use for 3D technology using 3D images,” it said. Measuring energy use of TVs with Internet connectivity is another issue on which it wants input, the DOE said. The technology lets users stream content directly into the TVs, potentially causing the sets to use more energy, it said. The IEC standard measures Internet usage by requiring that a power measurement be taken while the TV is displaying an Internet content video signal, it said. Comments on the rulemaking are due Oct. 4.
The DOE said it will discuss at the Oct. 13 public meeting the “analytical framework, models and tools” it’s using to develop battery charger and external power supply standards, the results of its “preliminary analyses,” and the “potential” conservation levels “derived” from the analyses.