riends of PSMA introduces readers to organizations that PSMA has a cooperative relationship with to better serve our respective memberships and the international power electronics industry. If you have suggestions on other industry organizations we should consider or ways that we can improve our current relationship with other industry associations, we would be delighted to hear from you.

In this article we introduce you to the The European Power Supply Manufacturers' Association (EPSMA).

In the year 2020, the EPSMA celebrated the 25th anniversary of its founding. It was formed from a group of European power supply manufacturers who were participating in a continuous power market survey, organized by IMS, now IHS Markit. The data from the companies was anonymized, but the group made connections with each other and saw an advantage in forming an association for their mutual benefit. IHS agreed to act as the secretariat for the group and it was formally registered as a 'European Economic Interest Group' (EEIG) in 2002. This status allowed companies who were often competitors to meet as a 'trade association' to represent the interests of their members to national bodies and to promote European power supply manufacturers overall. To be able to monitor and influence European standards relating to power supplies, the EPSMA became a CENELEC liaison organization, affiliated with technical committee TC 22X, which is responsible for standards relating to power converters. Some EPSMA members are in fact already members of TC 22X. IHS relinquished the secretariat service in 2015 and the function is now within the EPSMA organization.

Some of the initial work by the EPSMA was related to the protection of the European industry from product and component 'dumping' from the far east which was creating an unfair market with items that were not necessarily meeting acceptable quality standards. The EPSMA identified related products and informed the authorities. Another area of work was an effort to influence and mitigate the effects of the original power factor correction (PFC) requirements, that had been imposed on the industry with little warning.

EPSMA membership originally was limited to power companies headquartered in Europe, but with the globalization of the industry, this was relaxed and any power supply manufacturer or supplier to the industry can join as a full member if they have at least one full-time employee in Europe. There is also an affiliate membership category which typically includes educational establishments such as universities. The EPSMA is controlled by a management committee of around twelve members which meets four times each year, either in person or by teleconference. There is also a technical committee (TC) consisting of experts from member companies, which meets to discuss technical developments in the industry and inform the membership. The TC also generates in-depth technical documents, typically related to standards, for the guidance of members. These documents are available for non-members to purchase. The most popular over time has been the EPSMA's analysis of the PFC or 'harmonic emissions' standard with specific guidance on how to comply. This was updated in 2018 to include the most recent requirements. Other documents published include guidance for compliance with medical, rail, telecomms, DIN rail and hazardous location safety standards.

The TC has also published papers on the implications of the RoHS, WEEE directives and general power supply design guides on 'Accurate Efficiency Measurements', 'Lifetime Prediction', 'Reliability Prediction' and 'Embedded Software verification and Validation'. Some of these documents are free to download for non-members and a full list, including abstracts of 'members only' documents are available at www.epsma.org/technical-publications. The current work by the TC is focused on generating a guidance document about 'Over-voltage Categories' and their implications on power supply design.

As of today, the EPSMA has around 25 members including all of the main European power supply manufacturers. Six universities are affiliate members as is one of the European test houses. Four of the founding members remain active in the association and new members join at a steady rate. The website www.epsma.org is the portal for information on the activities of the EPSMA with member news and product press releases, information about latest publications, member job vacancies and a quarterly newsletter. There are links on the website to industry resources and indeed to the PSMA. For more information about membership or any other aspect of the EPSMA, please contact: secretariat@epsma.org.

Provided by Paul Lee, EPSMA Secretariat

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