IEC Survey: Trends in Energy Efficiency and Product Safety Regulations

Related to the role as ‘IEC Ambassador for Conformity Assessment training of IEC Affiliates’, the editor of this newsletter has been involved with making a survey amongst IEC’s affiliate countries about their regulatory situation concerning energy efficiency and safety of electrical and electronic products.

There are presently 86 IEC Affiliates countries, most of which are developing countries within Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, Asia Pacific, EurAsia and Middle East.
The survey was organized by the IEC-ACP (Affiliate Country Program) secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland.

The responses which were provided by totally 40 countries, (including 15 in Africa and 14 in Latin America/Caribbean), gave interesting results, showing amongst other the following:

• There are at present or planned regulatory requirements for energy efficiency for electrical/electronic products in ca.60% of the countries, which are based on current energy efficiency requirements in some other countries/
  regions (e.g. EU or USA).
• Compliance with the energy efficiency requirements needs to be documented by third party certificate in more than 80% of the countries, which may be based on international IEC standards (when containing both testing methods and limits/grading of energy efficiency).
• Other than energy efficiency, concerning safety of electrical/electronic products, there at present, or planned, national requirements in ca.60% of the countries.
• For both energy efficiency and product safety, certificates/test reports issued by members of IEC’s Conformity  Assessment systems, such as the IECEE | CB Scheme, are also accepted for documenting compliance in ca.60% of the countries.

The survey results will be an excellent basis for promoting recognition/usage of certificates issued within IEC’s Conformity Assessment systems, especially the IECEE-CB scheme which covers electrical/electronic consumer products marketed in all countries. A ‘roadmap’ for ways to utilize CB Test Certificates nationally will be presented to the affiliate countries during their forum at the ACP-the IEC General Meeting in San Francisco in November this year.

Relevant national authorities/bodies in these countries should be aware of this unique international certification scheme which offers a high degree of safety assurance for imported electrical/electronic products. For other imported commodities, such as building material, chemicals, foodstuffs etc, such international certification schemes do not exist, only simpler schemes such as pre-shipment inspection.

For further information, please contact the editor.

(Article is based on text of IEC ACP-survey results, edited by T.Sollie)