By George W. Thompson
The Department of Energy has proposed new rules governing energy conservation standards for uninterruptible power supplies. The covered products are described as “a combination of convertors, switches and energy storage devices (such as batteries), constituting a power system for maintaining continuity of load power in case of input power failure.” Three subcategories are included: voltage and frequency dependent, voltage independent and voltage and frequency independent.
The proposed rules’ stated purpose is reduction of both operating costs for, and carbon dioxide emissions from, uninterruptible power supplies. To achieve them, DOE envisions imposing the following standards:
DOE’s notice provides extensive detail regarding the proposed testing procedures, economic costs and benefits, technological feasibility and other consequences of the proposed rules. Interested parties have the opportunity to comment on any and all aspects of the proposed rules, with comments due by October 4, 2016. A related public meeting is scheduled for September 9, 2016. The entire 52-page document is available here.
I have a hunch that the rulemaking process will take quite a while, and the standards will not be issued anytime soon. On top of that, DOE intends to make whatever standards it finally adopts effective two years after the final rules are issued. Therefore, there are no imminent mandatory changes looming for uninterruptible power supplies.
Manufacturers and, especially, importers should nevertheless be mindful of the proposals. In the short term, they have the opportunity to help shape the final standards. Longer term, once those standards are announced, there is a limited (albeit fairly long) period before they become mandatory. On that date, imported articles that do not meet them will be subject to exclusion from entry into the United States, regardless that they were manufactured to conform with preexisting standards. The same thing happened not too long ago with external power supplies, as discussed here. Importers should have a process in place to obtain conforming uninterruptible power supplies from their foreign vendors once the new standards are announced.
