Cobra Electronics is offering a mobile battery pack with a twist -- it not only will recharge dead smartphones and function as an LED flashlight, but also promises to jump-start cars. Cobra’s CPP 8000 JumPack costs $99 and is about the size of a deck of cards. Its lithium-cobalt battery delivers five volts at 2.1 amps for rapid charging of portable devices such as mobile phones, tablets and digital cameras. Unconventionally, JumPack also has a shuttered, twin-pin socket that takes short, fused leads with crocodile clips. These connect to a car battery and deliver bursts of 12 volts at around 200 amps. Cobra says this is enough to jump-start most vehicles. In London, we put the device to a real-world test, deliberately draining the battery of a Volkswagen Polo with 1.4-liter engine and then trying to start it with the JumPack. We found the JumPack delivered enough power to turn over the engine, several times, but lacked the speed and torque to get the engine running. We followed the instructions and tried several times with short bursts, but couldn't start the engine. Our test findings suggested the CPP 8000 may be best suited for cars with a low, but not completely drained, battery. Cobra representatives didn’t comment.
The Department of Energy is again extending the period for comments, this time until March 14, on a proposal that would require importers of products covered by energy efficiency standards to file a “certification of admissibility” for each shipment of such products when they're imported, it said in a notice that's scheduled to be published in Monday's Federal Register. The Dec. 29 proposed rule would require filing of the information via Customs and Border Protection's Automated Commercial Environment system (see 1512310008). DOE already had extended the comment period until Feb. 29 in response to requests from trade groups, and held a public meeting on the rule Feb. 19 (see 1602190049).
Panasonic’s Eco Solutions division is showcasing its Green Tower energy infrastructure management solution for cellular, Wi-Fi and two-way land mobile communications sites at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Green Tower combines lithium-ion energy storage, solar energy generation, satellite communications and real-time monitoring and control in what Panasonic calls a “paradigm shift” from static power systems to a remotely managed intelligent infrastructure, offering cell sites dependent on the grid an alternative energy infrastructure. Green Tower uses remote and site-installed hardware and software to communicate with and intelligently operate on-site assets including battery, generator and HVAC systems from a centralized operations center, Panasonic said. Green Tower's intelligent site management can extend communications systems’ useful life and reduce operating costs by 10-15 percent, Panasonic said. Green Tower’s technology platform is deployed at critical safety sites in Northern Europe, weak grid sites in Southeast Asia and grid connected sites in North America and Europe, Panasonic said.
The Department of Energy gave CTA, the Information Technology Industry Council and six other trade groups just a bit of what they had sought when it extended the Friday comments deadline to Feb. 29 in an NPRM (docket EERE-2015-BT-CE-0019) that would require importers of products covered under “an applicable energy conservation standard” to file a “certification of admissibility” for each shipment of such products before their arrival at a U.S. port of entry (see 1602100012). DOE did grant the groups’ request to hold a public meeting to explain the NPRM before comments are due, said a prepublication notice in the Federal Register released by the agency. But that meeting will be Feb. 19, 9:30 a.m., at DOE headquarters in Washington, only 10 days before comments are due, the notice said. The meeting also will be webcast, it said. The groups had asked DOE to extend the comments deadline for 30 days after the meeting date. CTA, ITI and the other groups have said in a joint letter that they're genuinely "confused" with the NPRM because it “does little to explain the specific issue the Department is attempting to resolve with the proposed import data collection.”
CTA and the Information Technology Industry Council joined six other trade groups in urging the Department of Energy to extend its Friday comments deadline and hold a public meeting to explain an NPRM (docket NEERE-2015-BT-CE-0019) that would require importers of products covered under “an applicable energy conservation standard” to file a “certification of admissibility” for each shipment of such products before their arrival at a U.S. port of entry. The proposal “would be a completely new requirement,” and would “trigger a new and additional reporting scheme and importers would need to develop internal processes to comply,” said the eight groups in a Feb. 2 letter that was posted online Tuesday. In the NPRM issued Dec. 29, DOE sought comment on “six weighty issues” and gave commenters only 45 days to respond, “starting during the winter holiday season,” the letter said. “Although it seems DOE contemplated a public meeting because one is mentioned” in the NPRM, the agency hasn't scheduled one "to discuss this proposal with the large number of affected stakeholders,” it said. The trade groups have genuine confusion about the NPRM because it “does little to explain the specific issue the Department is attempting to resolve with the proposed import data collection,” it said. The groups also “are confused by the proposed requirements for products that are imported as component parts of other products not subject to DOE regulations,” the letter said. “We would like to further understand how DOE envisions that proposal working in practice and the goals DOE has for requiring the brand name and model number be reported for the final product.” The groups want DOE to extend the comments deadline for an additional 30 days from the date of a public meeting, "if one is scheduled as we hope it will be," the letter said. The meeting also should be held before comments are due, not after, it said. If the agency denies the request for a public meeting, the comments deadline should be extended for 60 days to April 12, it said. Also signing the letter were the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, the North American Association of Food Equipment Manufacturers and Plumbing Manufacturers International. DOE representatives didn’t comment Wednesday.
The Energy Department is proposing to require the filing of “certifications of admissibility” at the time of entry into the country via customs for products and equipment subject to energy efficiency standards, said an agency spokeswoman. “Our intent with the proposal is that the certification will be filed at the same time as the entry is filed with CBP,” she said of Customs and Border Protection, saying comment on the proposal is welcome. DOE’s Tuesday proposed rule said the certifications would be filed before “arrival at a U.S. port of entry” or “before entry.”
With the holiday season “nearly in the rearview mirror,” it’s a good time for a reminder that “those electronic devices given or received need not result in higher electric bills,” said Noah Horowitz, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Tuesday in a blog post. For those who got a new TV as a holiday gift, the “good news” is that today’s sets are “much more energy efficient” than those that came out “even five years ago,” Horowitz said. But “while most of the newest smart TVs are able to boot up within 10 seconds” and only use half a watt or less of power in standby mode, “some models take a little longer and have a setting called ‘quick start’ that in some cases will use 10 watts to as much as 30 watts,” he said. Though quick start makes a smart TV boot up a little faster, “this is quite a high price to pay,” he said. “We recommend consumers disable the quick start or ‘instant on’ type function unless you absolutely can't wait a few extra seconds for your TV to power up.”
Conventional wisdom has suggested that exposing batteries to heat can shorten their life expectancy. But a new study from researchers at the California Institute of Technology found that heat actually can break down the damaging branch-like structures called dendrites that can grow inside rechargeable batteries, possibly extending battery life. When dendrites reach and contact the cathode in a rechargeable cell, they form a short circuit that forces electrical current to flow across the dendrites instead of the external circuit, rendering the battery useless and dead, said an announcement in the Journal of Chemical Physics trumpeting its publication Thursday of an article on the study. The researchers grew lithium dendrites on a test battery and heated them over a couple days, the article said. They found that temperatures up to 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit) shortened the dendrites by as much as 36 percent, it said. Though the experiments were done on lithium batteries, the dendrite phenomenon is common to all rechargeable cells, so the conclusions can be applied broadly, it said.
NCTA, seeking an administrator for a newer power efficiency pact for Internet gear (see 1506250038), said an audit found savings from a previous accord to cut the amount of electricity set-top boxes use. The so-called voluntary agreement (VA) among pay-TV providers, makers of consumer electronics and energy efficiency advocates saved $500 million-plus in energy, preventing 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, said the association Thursday, citing a report released that day by an independent auditor. The VA saved consumers $336 million in 2014, a year when 90 percent of set-tops bought by pay-TV providers met the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star v3.0 efficiency levels, said NCTA in a Wednesday blog post. But progress toward the next tier of performance could be "challenging," because set-tops bought in January 2017 likely will have more functionality than products reported for last year, said the report dated July 31, the second annual one under the VA. It said Tier 2 requirements must be met by 90 percent of set-tops bought by participants starting Dec. 31, 2016. The pay-TV industry, "undergoing massive changes" including shifting to IP-based video that may cut set-top energy use, opens "up a realm of possibilities," wrote Senior Scientist Noah Horowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a participant in the set-top VA, on the NRDC's blog. "We are hoping that the industry includes power-scaling technology in their next-generation devices so these devices only work as hard as the task at hand." Meanwhile, the steering committee for June's VA on Web gear issued a request for proposals for an independent administrator for that accord, which doesn't include energy efficiency advocates but does include pay-TV and CE companies. RFPs for that small network equipment initiative are due Sept. 16, said NCTA. The administrator "will annually assess each company’s compliance, produce an annual report, and handle many other transparency and verification functions," said the association.
CEA used its comments in the Department of Energy’s request for information about reducing regulatory burdens to again press its case that DOE’s test procedure for measuring power consumption of TVs is “unnecessary,” and should be repealed. The test procedure is “duplicative and problematic, and in the context of reducing regulatory burdens, CEA urges DOE to repeal its test procedure for TVs which was promulgated by final rule in October 2013,” CEA told DOE in comments Friday. “By mandating this test procedure despite stakeholder objections, DOE added to U.S. firms’ testing burdens, undermined the international and U.S. consensus standards process, undermined international harmonization, and created economic diseconomies with most of the rest of the world which relies on international standards.” CEA for years has stood by its criticism that DOE’s TV test procedure rulemaking was “wasteful and unnecessary in light of industry leadership and accomplishment on energy efficiency in this major product category” (see 1310280079). By mandating its own test procedure rather than incorporating CEA’s test standard by reference, as CEA had urged DOE to do, DOE “has tied everyone’s hands, limiting the ability of industry to maintain standards that benefit consumers and existing programs,” such as Energy Star and EnergyGuide, CEA has said. The test procedure rule can be “simply repealed without impairing the Department’s or other regulatory programs,” CEA said again Friday. Before the test procedure rule was promulgated, the Energy Star program “comfortably relied” on International Electrotechnical Commission/CEA standards “with minor divergences intended to clarify testing procedures,” it said. DOE’s test procedure for TVs “will become obsolete over time,” compared with IEC/CEA test procedures, “which evolve to technological realities and are revised,” CEA said. “DOE has never been able to keep up with the need to revise test procedures. Whatever initial separation there is between the U.S. and international test procedures would only be exacerbated over time. This will cause additional testing burdens to companies selling globally and will hinder innovation because new designs and technologies will be quickly incorporated in the IEC and CEA standards but may be blocked by a federal test procedure.”