News

Research Draft of IEEE Power Control Standard for Office and Consumer Electronics Completed (6/11/2003)

IEEE 1621(TM) Working Group Open to Those Who Want to Help Create an International Device Power Management Standard

Although the power controls on office and consumer electronics cut billions of dollars off electrical bills each year, many devices are still not effectively power managed. A new working group at the IEEE has been formed to address this, and has developed a preliminary draft document based on conclusions drawn by the Power Management Controls Project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The IEEE 1621 Power Controls User Interface Working Group has begun to turn the draft into an international standard. Anyone interested in electronic device power consumption is invited to help create the new standard. The next phase of this effort will be kicked off in teleconferences on Nov. 18 from 10 a.m. to noon (Pacific time) and in January (call +1 510-486-7089 for details). These initial meetings will consider what items should be added or dropped from the standard, among other topics.

The new standard, IEEE P1621(TM), "Standard for User Interface Elements in Power Control of Electronic Devices Employed in Office/Consumer Environments," will seek to create uniform power controls by setting consistent power management terms, symbols and indicators for all electronic devices.

"The power management features of many devices are disabled, incorrectly configured or thwarted by hardware or software conflicts," says Bruce Nordman, Chair of the IEEE 1621 Working Group. "Power usage in most personal computers, for example, is not managed properly, and there is also great room for improvement in such items as monitors, printers and copiers.

"The new standard is intended to reduce confusion and ambiguity about power controls. For instance, it will limit controls to just three power states, on, sleep and off, and will use power symbols that conform to those in the IEC 60417 standard. Our goal is to increase the likelihood that power controls will be enabled in appliances, telecommunications devices, space-conditioning equipment and other electronic devices in the home and office."

The Power Management Controls Project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) set the stage for the work on the IEEE 1621 standard. Funding support for the initial project was provided by the California Energy Commission through its Public Interest Energy Research Program.

eetd.lbl.gov/Controls/1621