SMA is pleased to announce the formation of a new technical committee, the Safety & Compliance Committee. If you or your company is involved with the design and marketing of power products it is critical that they comply with the safety and emission standards where they are sold. You are invited to participate in the Safety & Compliance Committee and benefit from the discussions and alerts on existing and changing standards.

Mission

The PSMA Safety & Compliance Committee mission is to provide a resource for our members and the power electronics community in the dynamic area of safety, regulatory and compliance issues and requirements concerning power electronics. These include:

• Monitor trends, developments and standards covering military, industrial, computing, telecom/datacom and medical aspects of power conversion electronic products
  
• A focus on US and global EMI-RFI, safety, surge- transients, hold-up time standards
  
• Discussion of existing and evolving standards and trends that apply to power converters and to provide a resource to members and the industry
  

Database

The committee will support a comprehensive on line data base which will be a repository of standards and requirements that affect the power supplies and which will be periodically updated to include the status, trends and issues and upcoming changes by region and country. It is expected that the database would be updated and administrated using a similar process as for the PSMA Energy Efficiency database currently on the PSMA website.

Membership activities

Members of the Committee are encouraged to participate in monthly calls – in general each of the PSMA technical committees meet once a month via teleconference.
As the saying goes, “Many hands make light work” and participants are invited who are knowledgeable and can actively contribute or are interested in networking with others in the industry to share experiences or concerns.
In addition to the database activities, other committee activities may include organizing an Industry Session for APEC on Safety and Compliance issues and contributing to the PSMA Power Technology Roadmap.

Membership

We would like to invite all parties interested in regulatory and safety aspects of power electronics to attend and participate. Help us to understand and to communicate the challenge and impact facing our industry in conforming to these evolving global standards. We encourage you to join our meetings or invite others in your organization involved in these areas.

So, let us know if you or others in your organization are interested in becoming an active member of the PSMA Safety & Compliance Committee. We expect you will find that you will get as much out or more than you put into it.
If interested, please send contact information to power@psma.com.

Provided by Kevin Parmenter, Safety & Compliance Committee Chair

If you or anyone in your company is interested in getting on the distribution list for future issues of PSMA UPDATE, please send e-mail to: power@psma.com. Be sure to include your name and the name of your company.