'Vampire' demonstration given to President Bush

1 August 2001 News

Power Integrations' President and CEO Balu Balakrishnan recently gave a demonstration to President Bush and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on the significant amount of energy wasted by standby power supplies of electronic devices in US households. Called 'vampire' devices, these consume energy even when users believe they are turned 'off' - energy consumption equivalent to 26 average-size power plants.

Following the demonstration, President Bush stated that the federal government "will work hard to purchase and promote those energy savers that only use one watt of energy as opposed to the average four or seven watts of energy." He continued, "we must incorporate the new one-watt standard in the qualifications to earn the Energy Star as awarded by the department of Energy and EPA."

Commenting on the demonstration, Balakrishnan said, "Our EcoSmart chips pull the plug on energy 'vampires' by making electronic products more energy-efficient. We support the 1 W Energy Star initiative and believe this will encourage manufacturers to produce more energy efficient electronic products, saving consumers billions of dollars in wasted electricity. Our chips work like vampire slayers and already meet these new proposed standby requirements."

Power Integrations' semiconductors utilise the company's EcoSmart technology to reduce standby power well below the proposed one-watt standby power consumption level. This allows appliance and electronics manufacturers to cost-effectively produce electronic products with smaller, lighter and more energy-efficient power supplies that have fewer components - called 'highly integrated power supplies'.

Memec South Africa

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