The Global Community for Sustainable Energy Professionals
Figure 60: CE mark.
If the CE mark is placed on a piece of equipment/product, it only means that the equipment producer or the person importing it into Europe declares that the equipment concerned satisfies all European Directives applicable to it. For most electrical applications there are three of them:
The CE mark indicates that a product satisfies the minimum safety requirements. This thus has nothing to do with quality tests or standards inspections. Without the CE mark, products for which the mark is required (almost all electrical products), cannot be sold or traded in the European Union. Save for exceptions for specific applications, a producer must put the CE mark on his products himself (printed or sticker). By affixing the CE mark, a person who is associated with the producer (owner, chief executive, director, technical manager, etc.) is jointly and severally liable for having done so correctly, in order to avoid the CE mark being affixed all too easily and sometimes without knowledge of the facts. In order to limit this joint and several risk, most producers have tests done by an independent laboratory during the development of new products. In this way they have independent test results as a basis for affixing the CE mark. Products with a CE mark always have to be used. In principle, you cannot find products without it from the supplier (or even on the European market). If this is not the case, the installer can be held liable in the event of any problems (for example, fire).
