Spring 2026

 In this Issue:

• Low Input Voltage De-rating Working Group
• Annual General Meeting November 2025
• Carbon footprint calculation guidance document now available to members, on this website

Notes from the Secretariat - Alan Hill

I am very pleased to observe that the UK is slowly emerging from one of the most wet and miserable winters in my memory. However, in my rural corner of South West England, birds are gathering nesting materials and the Spring bulbs are bursting into flower again.
I am also reflecting upon six months as secretary of the association. The obvious highlight for myself was the Annual General Meeting, generously hosted by PULS GmbH at their attractive offices in Vienna. As the ‘new boy’, I approached every aspect of this project with some trepidation, particularly the herding of a group of senior engineers and managers, through the business of a very busy agenda. We charged through the required formalities of electing officers and managers before completing some great work on many topics. The meeting minutes are available on this website. Friendships were later refreshed and initiated through animated conversation and a convivial evening meal in the heart of Vienna.

It was particularly encouraging to welcome so many participants to this annual general meeting. Eleven representatives and guests made the commitment to join us in person in Vienna, while a further nine representatives and our guest speaker attended through a MS Teams conference call.

During this ‘induction’ period it has become clear that there is significant potential to increase awareness of the association and to promote the benefits of our forum for collaboration between competitors, in issues of common concern. Efforts will be focussed primarily upon our Linkedin social media activity. The significant work of our technical committee is worthy of wider knowledge within the industry. The TC is currently navigating through the complexities of the EU Cyber Resilience Act, due for full implementation 11^th December 2027, in order to publish a guidance document to support our members. This new legislation carries with it significant penalties for non-compliance, so pressure exists to offer a tangible resource while time remains before full mandatory compliance.

We hope that members will increase the use of our Linkedin presence. Member representatives can expect to receive invitations to use our Linkedin page to share their own good news stories; new product launches and marketing campaigns.

For a considerable time the association has been seeking to lobby the IEC Technical Committee number 108, to re-draft a proposal for the electrical safety standard IEC62368-1. If adopted in the next published edition, this change would prevent the specification of a de-rated power supply output power, when the product is powered from AC distribution in ‘low-line’ countries such Japan and USA. At the AGM we agreed that our further activities would be channelled into a working group, tasked with studying the text of the standard in detail and drafting a counter-proposal.

This new working group met for the first time on Friday 6^th February. In summary, a three point action plan was defined:

1. A line-by-line study of the draft text of the next edition, to identify all clauses varied or impacted by the proposal to prevent output power rating, conditional upon the line voltage.
2. The development of a rationale, exploring the issue from a broad perspective and reasoning that the proposal offers little or no increased safety benefit, while implementing significant chaos and cost within the industry.
3. This issue has been triggered, in part, by the weakness of definitions for products that receive type approval as a complete consumer facing product in their own right, and those products intended to be installed within a piece of consumer-facing equipment. This third task is therefore to draft improved definitions for the two classes of power supply.

Members of the group were allocated to the tasks above and will report back to a plenary session on 14^th April.

Lastly, we were very pleased to conclude the project of the Technical Committee, by publishing our document titled ‘Carbon Footprint Calculation for Power Supplies’, on 14^th November 2025. The document is available to members at no cost, from within the Members Area of the website. Access to this area is a benefit of EPSMA membership.

Upcoming Events

• PEMD 2026 – Power electronics, Machines and Drives, London, UK, 13-15^th April 2026. https://pemd.theiet.org/
• 2026 PCIC Energy Europe (PCIC Energy), Copenhagen, Denmark, 2^nd-4^th https://pcic.energy/europe/
• 2026 8^th International Conference on DC Microgrids (ICDCM 2026),Xi’an, China, 12-14^th https://www.icdcm2026.com/
• 2026 14^th International Conference on smart Grid (icsSmartGrid), Suceava, Romania, 6-9^th https://www.icsmartgrid.org/
• 2026 IEEE Wireless Power Technology Conference and Expo (WPTCE), Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 6-9^th https://ieee-wptce.org/
• Electronica Trade Fair 2026, Munich, Germany, 10-13th November. https://electronica.de/en/trade-fair/
• Q2 Management Committee meeting – 19^th May
• Q3 Management Committee meeting – 8^th September
• Q4 Annual General Meeting – 10^th November, offices of PULS GmbH, Munich. In-person.