A draft proposal for: Minimum Energy Performance Standards for Home Entertainment Equipment

Downloading the PDF Version

The full document is available as a PDF file. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to view it. The Adobe Reader is a free product.

Download A draft proposal for: Minimum Energy Performance Standards for Home Entertainment Equipment (200613-meps-home-entertainment.pdf - 1.1 MB)

If you are unable to access this document, please contact the Australian Greenhouse Office to organise a suitable alternative format.

Public Comments: The E3 Committee seeks comment from any interested stakeholder by Friday 9 February 2007. Your comments will assist with finalising this regulatory proposal and should be directed to: energy.rating@deh.gov.au.

Download Letter dated 8 January 2007 - Home Entertainment Equipment Standby Interim Requirements.

Summary

This report was prepared by EnergyConsult for E3 and was released for comment in November 2006.

The report proposes Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) for commercially available consumer equipment that produces, records or assists in producing an audio or video signal/output but excludes televisions and set top boxes which are being considered for separate regulation.

Over the past four years the Equipment Energy Efficiency (E3) Committee has been tracking the energy usage, in particular standby power consumption of appliances offered for sale in retail outlets across Australia. Additionally E3 has commissioned an intrusive survey of standby consumption in households and a telephone survey of 800 households to determine appliance ownership and usage. This research has been the backbone of standby policy development in that finally the Australian Government has meaningful data on the extent of standby power consumption in Australian households.

Leading on from this earlier research, the Ministerial Council on Energy in 2002 released the policy document Money Isn't all You're Saving outlining Australia's Standby Power Strategy 2002 - 2012. The strategy outlined the products and appliances that require "immediate" or "subsequent" action in the standby power program. Initially stereo equipment was among a group of products identified for immediate action and with the rapid proliferation of DVD & home theatre products, these were added shortly after. Part of this action included the development of "product profiles" to "provide an overview of the product in terms of its standby characteristics, the purpose and functionality of their standby function, market status, ownership levels and trends in sales and product types." (MCE 2002)

Product profiles for these appliance groups were released for comment during 2003 and 2004. Industry feedback indicated that the preferred approach for these products was regulatory action. As such this report was commissioned to consider a range of policy options including Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) to achieve that outcome.

This page last modified 18 October 2007