Energy efficiency and standardization bodies (part 4 - The European Commission)

The increase in energy demand, the growing instability in energy supply and the EU CO2 emmissions reduction commitments have stressed the need for an international strategy on energy efficiency and the diversification of energy sources.

Energy efficiency is, then, a topic which can be found at every international standardisation level (ISO, IEC, CEN, CENELEC, ITU-T, ETSI). This series of short articles aims at providing a brief summary of the main activities currently ongoing by the various international standardisation bodies relevant this field of interest.


European Commission-JRC

The European Commission, through its research center located in Ispra, Italy (Joint Research Centre, JRC), since 2003 has undertaken activities of analysis, proposal, and voluntary protocols (Code of Conduct) on energy efficiency, aiming mainly (but not only) at equipment standby consumption reduction.
Currently CoCs deal with:

• External Power Supply: CoC related to efficiency and no load consumption of external power supply devices (ac/dc type.)
• UPS: first version of this CoC was published in December 2006.
• Digital TV services: CoC related to TV equipment and Set Top Boxes.
• Broadband systems (both Network and User side.) CoC BB has been developed by: Regulators, Operators and system manufacturers. In particular, with reference to operators, this CoC can be adopted on a voluntary basis starting from January 2007.
• Internet Data Center: This CoC deals with power consumption, conditioning techniques, virtualisation, metrics and methods for data gathering. The importance is related to consumption share of IDCs, which is very relevant today (approximately 10%-20% of operators industrial consumption) and most of all, continuously increasing. Main regulators active on this topic are: Green Grid (EPA), UK (MTP), Australia, Swiss and Cina. The activities started in 2007.