In a meeting of the Ecodesign Regulatory Committee held July 7th, EU Member States endorsed the Commission's proposal for a regulation reducing standby energy consumption of household and office products. The regulation lays down energy efficiency requirements for all products sold in Europe, thus cutting the EU's standby electricity consumption by almost 75% by 2020.

The "standby" regulation applies to all electric devices used in households and offices, such as TVs, computers, microwave ovens, etc. Depending on the functionality of the product it sets a maximum allowed power consumption for standby of either 1 or 2 Watts for the year 2010. As of 2013 the admissible power consumption level will be lowered to 0.5 Watt or 1 Watt, which is close to the levels that can be achieved with the best available technology.

Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, expects that “this first measure under the Ecodesign Directive will drastically reduce standby electricity consumption of household and office products. It is a concrete contribution to reach the EU's energy efficiency and climate protection targets, while saving citizens' money".

The regulation will reduce today's standby electricity consumption in the EU - approx. 50 TWh per year - by 73% by 2020. These savings are equal to Denmark's yearly electricity consumption and would lead to approximately 14 Mt CO2 emission savings per year. Further savings are expected in other parts of the world as well, since many of the targeted products are sold worldwide. The staged approach allows manufacturers to adapt their products to the new requirements in time. The regulation builds on the results of an in-depth analysis of the technical, economic and environmental aspects of standby, which was carried out together with stakeholders and experts from around the world.

The standby regulation will now be scrutinised by the European Parliament. It is scheduled for formal adoption by the Commission within 2008.

Eco-design measures to reduce energy consumptiion

The Council and the European Parliament adopted a Commission proposal for a Directive on establishing a framework for setting Eco-design requirements (such as energy efficiency requirements) for all energy using products in the residential, tertiary and industrial sectors. Coherent EU-wide rules for eco-design will ensure that disparities among national regulations do not become obstacles to intra-EU trade.

The directive defines conditions and criteria for setting requirements regarding environmentally relevant product characteristics (such as energy consumption) and allows them to be improved quickly and efficiently. In principle, the Directive applies to all energy using products (except vehicles for transport) and covers all energy sources.