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Public Meeting for Energy Conservation Standards for 

Battery Chargers and External Power Supplies 

July 16th, 2007 – Washington, DC 

Issues for Stakeholder Comment 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a document on its website in conjunction with 

this public meeting: Energy Conservation Standards Rulemaking Framework Document for 

Battery Chargers and External Power Supplies. While DOE invites comments from stakeholders 

on all aspects of the material presented in this document, there are several issues in particular on 

which DOE seeks comment. These are highlighted in issue boxes throughout the document and 

the associated public meeting presentation. 

The list of issues to be presented during today’s public meeting is reproduced below, grouped 

according to the session at which they will be discussed. Within those groupings, the issues are 

numbered according to their appearance in the framework document. Unnumbered items are 

additional issues that do not appear in the Framework Document. 

1. Welcome 

[No Issues] 

2. Introduction and Agenda Review 

[No Issues] 

3. Regulatory Overview 

[No Issues] 

4. Energy Conservation Standards Rulemaking 

[No Issues] 

5. Stakeholder Comments 

[No Issues] 

6. Scope of Analysis 

Additional Item DOE welcomes comments on the scope of the rulemaking. 

Item 6 DOE requests comment on its interpretation of the definition of “detachable 

battery,” and the impact on EPSs excluded from Class A. 

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Item 5 DOE welcomes comment on any products with detachable batteries that are not 

motor operated, the wall adapters of which should also be excluded from Class A EPS 

standards. 

Item 4 DOE seeks comments on including DC-powered battery chargers within the 

scope of the BC standards rulemaking. 

Item 13 DOE is seeking input on these and any additional criteria it should consider in 

determining the presence of wall adapter charge control functions. 

Item 10 DOE welcomes comment on additional functionality provided by some wall 

adapters for battery chargers that may impede their ability to meet the same standards 

as comparable wall adapters for other applications (considered EPSs). 

Item 9 DOE seeks comments on the four approaches to interpreting the BC and EPS 

definitions to resolve ambiguities in the scope of the analyses. 

Item 11 DOE welcomes comment on the manufacturer burden of compliance with 

current EISA Class A EPS standards under each of the four approaches and seeks 

information on how DOE can minimize this burden while ensuring that the standards are 

being met consistently by the industry. 

Item 12 DOE also welcomes comment on the likely manufacturer burden of compliance 

with possible future EPS and BC standards under each of the four approaches. To this 

end, DOE also seeks information from the industry regarding how the monitoring of 

compliance with these standards can be accomplished. 

7. Test Procedures 

Additional Item The Department invites stakeholder comments on changes to the 

standby and off mode measurement period. 

Additional Item The Department invites stakeholder comments on changes to the 

single-voltage EPS test procedure to accommodate USB-compliant wall adapters. 

Additional Item The Department invites stakeholder comments on the above changes 

to the previously proposed multiple-voltage EPS test procedure. 

Item 22 DOE seeks comments on how DOE should amend its BC test procedure to 

measure energy consumption in active mode. 

Additional Item The Department invites stakeholder comments on directly measuring 

charger output energy versus battery output energy. 

Additional Item The Department invites stakeholder comments on categorizing BC 

usage profiles using capacity characteristics. 

Additional Item The Department invites stakeholder comments on shortening of 

active and maintenance mode testing periods, in particular regarding typical charging 

times for consumer products that use rechargeable batteries. 

Additional Item The Department invites stakeholder comments on representative 

depths-of-discharge for common end-use consumer product applications. 

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8. Market Assessment 

Item 56, 57 DOE welcomes comments on its lifetime estimates and data for all 

applications that use EPSs and BCs. 

Item 17 DOE seeks comments and input on BC and EPS shipments. 

Additional Item DOE seeks data on the distribution of BC and EPS efficiency across 

the market. 

Additional Item DOE seeks comment on drivers of BC and EPS efficiency, such as 

technological advances, consumer demands for portability, or international agreements 

and standards. 

9. Product Price Determination 

Item 52 DOE seeks comments on the methodology for calculating the product price for 

BCs and EPSs, including assumptions about the percent of shipments passing through 

each distribution channel and the markups associated with each channel. 

10. Energy Use and End Use Load Characterization 

Item 46 DOE requests comments on the use of 24-hour charge cycles for estimating 

energy consumption for BCs in active mode. 

Additional Item DOE seeks input on methods for separating active mode time from 

maintenance mode time. 

Item 45 DOE seeks alternate sources, databases or methodologies with which to 

develop BC usage profiles. 

Additional Item DOE requests comments on its working assumption that the highest 

active mode application state requires 80 percent of nameplate output power and that 

the lowest active mode application state requires 15 percent of nameplate output power. 

Additional Item DOE requests alternative sources for application state loading points.

Item 50 DOE requests comments on its proposed methodology for calculating energy 

consumption at output levels below 25 percent of nameplate output power. 

11. Technology Assessment 

Additional Item DOE seeks comment on the above impacts of energy type, capacity, 

and performance-related features on topology. 

Item 23 DOE seeks comments on BC product class divisions, including whether battery 

voltage is the appropriate product classification criterion, and/or whether DOE should 

take into account other factors, such as charge rate, battery capacity, or battery 

chemistry. 

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Item 26 DOE seeks comments on how to consider output voltage in developing product 

classes, and how the low-voltage division should vary with EPS output power. 

Item 27 DOE seeks comments on the possible approaches discussed concerning EPS 

product classes, and invites interested parties to propose alternative approaches and/or 

other factors DOE should consider in developing product classes for the preliminary 

analyses 

Item 30 DOE seeks comments on the preliminary technology options identified in this 

section and whether there are other technology options it should consider. 

12. Screening Analysis 

Item 31 DOE seeks comments on how the four screening criteria might apply to the 

technology options discussed in section 3.7 in the Framework Document, as well as any 

additional technology option(s) that an interested party recommends to DOE. 

13. Engineering Analysis 

Item 34 DOE invites comments on the identification and selection of representative 

product classes and on models that may serve as good representative units within each 

product class. DOE also seeks comments on appropriate scaling relationships among 

product classes for both BCs and EPSs. 

Item 35 DOE seeks comments on representative product classes and selection of 

representative units from those representative product classes. 

Item 33 DOE seeks recommendations on possible candidate standard levels to use 

when analyzing EPSs and BCs. 

Item 38 DOE seeks comments on methods for normalizing cost and efficiency data for 

EPSs with output power and output voltage that differ from those of the representative 

units. 

Item 37 DOE invites manufacturers to work with DOE in the interviews to help develop 

aggregated curves of manufacturer selling price versus efficiency for the various 

representative units. 

Item 36 DOE seeks comments on the scaling of findings from representative product 

classes to other product classes that DOE may not explicitly analyze. 

14. Preliminary Manufacturer Impact Analysis 

[No Issues]

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15. Life-Cycle Cost Analysis 

Item 53 DOE seeks comments on its intention to focus its preliminary LCC analysis on 

the residential sector, and not the commercial or industrial sectors 

Item 54 DOE seeks comments on the use of the EIA national average electricity price 

and the AEO forecast of electricity prices over the analysis period. 

16. National Impact Analysis 

[No Issues] 

17. Next Steps and Closing Remarks 

[No Issues] 

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