CONSUMER ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY, GREEN GROUPS LINE UP TO SUPPORT GREEN PLUG OPEN POWER SOLUTION
Ricoh, Fabrik/SimpleTech, PG&E and Natural Resources Defense Council Among Those Endorsing Emerging Standard; Support Coincides with GSMA Embrace of Universal Power for Mobile Phones by 2012
SAN RAMON, Calif. (February 18, 2009) – Across the spectrum – from consumer electronics companies to public utilities, from environmental organizations to national governments – momentum is building toward an open, green standard for universal power.
To capture and share these sentiments, Green Plug today unveiled an extension to its website, at http://www.greenplug.us/supporters.php. The initiative complements the ongoing, consumer-driven “I Want My Green Plug” campaign. Beyond the ability to vote for CE devices to “Green Plug-enable,” http://iwantmygreenplug.com includes social tools for sharing with friends, embedding a widget on a blog or web site, bookmarking it on social sites, joining IWMGP groups on social networks, and following the Green Plug blog (http://blog.greenplug.us) for updates.
The momentum behind Green Plug coincides with this week’s announcement from the GSM Association at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona , where 17 wireless operators and handset makers agreed to standardize chargers by 2012 for most mobile phones. Chargers will be interchangeable among manufacturers and will work with future handsets. According to the GSM Association, discarded chargers account for upwards of 51,000 tons of waste annually.
Green Plug is the first green technology company to apply two-way digital communication to convert a universal power source to a device’s specific power requirements. Stylish DC power hubs enabled with Green Plug’s Greentalk™ digital protocol are able to simultaneously power multiple devices, each with its own specific voltage and power requirements. Green Plug technology minimizes e-waste by enabling consumers to keep their chargers for use with future devices after their current devices have become obsolete.
Embracing Green Plug’s approach to fixing “the broken power model” are the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pacific Gas & Electric, the Green Electronics Council, a representative of the Chinese government, and manufacturers Ricoh, Fabrik, Innergie, Luminary Micro and Westinghouse Digital Electronics, among others. A sampling of statements of support follows:
- "Imagine a world where you only need a couple of external power supplies to charge all the portable electronic devices in your home -- imagine the amount of energy and raw materials we can save by preventing the need to build billions of new power supplies each year,” said Noah Horowitz, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council. “The Alliance for Universal Power Supplies is working to make this dream a reality. We at the NRDC are fully supportive of efforts that will ensure that new external power supplies are energy efficient and can be used to charge multiple devices. The time for a universal ‘plug and play’ charger is now."
- "It seems intuitively obvious that all these unique external power supplies serve no one's interest,” said Jeff Omelchuck, Green Electronics Council, Portland , Oregon . “What a great idea to develop a simple communication protocol on a common connector so the device tells the power supply how much of what kind of power it needs, then turns the power supply off when it is charged. This is more convenient for the consumer, makes smarter power supplies cost effective, prevents the manufacture of yet more inefficient and dumb external power supplies, and keeps them out of our waste streams and landfills. A classic win-win-win!"
- "PG&E applauds the efforts of the industry to explore innovative ways to reduce standby power savings,” said Lee Cooper, Manager Emerging Technologies, PG&E. “The notion of utilizing digital collaboration between power supplies and the devices that use power holds promise for advances in monitoring and optimization."
- “Ricoh's commitment to the Three P's -- Balance™, Planet, People and Profit -- is more than just a slogan… we act,” said Harrison Tajima, Digital Camera Marketing, Ricoh Company Ltd. “When Green Plug presented Ricoh with the opportunity to build a digital camera concept system that incorporates the open systems power interface, we naturally wanted to pursue research in this topic.”
- “Innergie will soon be incorporating the Greentalk™ open systems power interface to more conveniently support almost any electronic product and to facilitate future monitoring and control applications,” said PS Tang, Senior Director, Innergie. "With the availability of Greentalk-enabled power accessories like Innergie, consumers will need just one, small power supply for all of their portable devices."
- "Green Plug's mission to set global standards in reducing electronic device energy consumption is to be applauded,” said John Harting, vice president of programs and platforms at SimpleTech, a Fabrik company. “When Green Plug approached us with the opportunity to participate in their recent CES™ demonstration showcase, we were excited. Pairing Green Plug's intelligent power supply technology with our new SimpleTech [re]drive, the world's most eco-friendly, resource-conscious external hard drive, is a smart choice not only for consumers who want to protect their digital content, but for those who want to protect the environment as well."
- "Besides helping the environment, the Green Plug technology will also help Westinghouse to cut its costs,” said Darwin Chang of the Alliance for Universal Power Supplies “Eventually it could stop shipping power adapters with its products because customers will already have a universal adapter at home."
- "The current power supply model could not fulfill future usage… It is time for development [of] a new power supply model for flexible application and environmental benefits,” said Mr. He, Guili, Director of ChinaTTL, China Academy of Telecommunication Research of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. “Universal power supply is [the] trend, with all its advantages."
- "It is becoming increasingly important to develop smarter, processor-controlled power supplies that are universal and interoperable with all DC-powered products. OEMs who care about the environment and about consumer satisfaction will leap at the opportunity to standardize their consumer electronics power solutions,” said Jean Anne Booth, CMO , Luminary Micro, Inc. “Luminary Micro provides the ideal platform for building new, innovative power applications on top of the smart, open systems power interface and is the architecture used in Green Plug reference designs.”
Source: Edge Communications, Inc.
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