The NMO surveillance activity follows the Energy Related Products Directive, and will in the long run result in all electrical equipment having to adjust to specific requirements when kept in standby or off mode. Products that don’t will not be accepted on the market.

Equipment with only a re-activation function cannot consume more than 1 Watt when in standby mode. Devices with an additional status display are limited to 2 Watts. The NMO tests revealed that merely half of the devices comply with the current standby requirements. The ones that did not consumed up to more than five times more energy.

The manufacturers in question were contacted in order to verify when the products had been released to the market. It turned out that three of the models already had been replaced with updated versions, and that the remaining two had been launched before the requirements had come into force. Replacing the first three models has saved the consumer almost € 100,000 a year (in electrical costs).

The standby mode requirements will become even stricter in January 2013. Seven out of the ten radios tested by the NMO would not comply with those new requirements.

Source: http://www.nmo.bis.gov.uk