The Linear External Power Supply Ban

“More than a billion external power supplies are sold globally each year” claims the final report of the European Commission as it prepares to ban all linear external power supplies. California State banned them in 2006.

The word “billion” is an emotive word alien to mathematics because it is ambiguous. It can mean either 1,000,000,000 or 1,000,000,000,000, so, for a start, which is it? I think as a manufacturer who will be affected by European Union Eco-design legislation I have the right to be accurately informed?

So do we assume it’s the American billion that seems to be used globally for statistics? The same billion adopted in the UK by prime-minister Harold Wilson in 1974? The billion that doesn’t mean a billion, for “bi” does not mean 1.5 times, and makes the American billion 1,000 times out!

Basing legislation on such inaccuracies seems folly?

As the world’s population is nearing 7,000,000,000, either each of us owns more than 142 external power supplies, or nearly 1 in 7 owns just one? I’d say it’s the latter and therefore will now correct the above statement to “More than 1,000,000,000 external power supplies are sold globally each year”.

Why am I laboring this point? Because I want to know just how much energy this legislation will save to see if it’s worth the damage it will do to high fidelity.

It would seem they (the EC and other legislators around the world) are also basing energy savings on the statistics that all these external power supplies (EPS) are linear, and that none are the more efficient switched-mode variety. However, they later in the report show that many manufacturers have already adopted switched-mode EPS!

In fact the diligent will realize that nearly all mobile phones and digital cameras on sale over the last few years come with a switched mode power supply – you can tell because they’re much lighter.

The report then tells us that 44% of sales including an external power supply are mobile phones and digital cameras!

So now we can estimate a figure for linear EPS – the ones they want to ban.

44% refers to 660,000,000, and the remainder is 840,000,000 - the quantity of linear EPS sold each year, or a good approximation (because as it says more than a billion I based this on 1.5 billion).

But do they really mean each year? How many were sold in 1850? This is important to get an idea of the proliferation – how many are actually in use, plugged into the domestic mains, and how many are just doing nothing and wasting power? How many are simply not used anymore? How many are disposed of each year?

The report estimates 2,900,000,000 in actual use by year 2010, growing to 5,000,000,000 by 2020 and I find the 2010 figure believable.

So 66% of those could be linear and therefore in 2010 there could be just less than 2,000,000,000 linear power supplies wasting energy around the world.

How much energy do they waste?

There are big EPS – there are small EPS – the average of nameplate ratings tell us the average EPS is “wall-wart” or “wall-bump size”. The average magnetizing current these require to excite the transformer core before it can produce any output is around 0.04 amperes on a 230 volt supply, or 0.08 amperes on a 120 volt supply. This equates to nearly 10 watts.

We now need to multiply that by 2,000,000,000 to get the total watts of wasted energy, and that equals 20,000,000,000 watts. Such a figure is cumbersome so it would be better expressed in megawatts, which is a universal figure for power generation. So let’s divide by 1,000,000 and we have a wastage figure of 20,000 megawatts world-wide!

So what is the impact of 20,000 megawatts?

It is 40% of the United Kingdom’s mains electricity usage.

I estimate that to be approximately 2.4% of the world’s mains electricity usage, which is roughly 1% or less of the world’s total energy (all energies) usage.

The question: Is this 1% energy-saving ban sufficient grounds for the massive upheaval and possible bankruptcies it will most likely cause? Is it sufficient grounds for you not to be able to enjoy EPS powered high fidelity (unless it's one of our "greens") anymore?

Whatever your views, it is a typical “Animal Farm” approach where equipment with built-in power supplies gets away untouched!

Four legs are good – two legs are bad?



Edited by Graham Slee - 22 Feb 2008 at 12:38pm

I realise I sound like one of those fist clenched in my pocket, getting aggrevated by the morning papers type now. But what is with the politicians wanting to ban everything they do not understand or appreciate themsleves. Just because noone in the various banning committees or whatever they call themselves cares for hifi doesn't mean noone else does. Bloody narrowminded selfishness is what it is


Edited by suede - 23 Dec 2011 at 1:32pm