An energy-aware survey of mobile phone chargers

The GeSI report analyses the most commercially available mobile phone chargers and a number of handheld devices

Upon GeSI request, a wide analysis has been made on most of the commercially available mobile phone chargers and some small handheld devices to evaluate the correlation between charger’s rated power and their mechanical/electrical characteristics.
This survey has been focused both on data from manufacturers and on measurements on electrical and mechanical parameters.
This report is organized in two main sections.
The first section “Analysis from public sources” reports the results derived from data available on the public sites of the different mobile terminal and power supply vendors.
In this part both mechanical and electrical data have been considered and compared to characterize the current chargers and to find possible significant correlations among the different parameters taking into account energy efficiency aspects, but also some economic considerations.
The second section is basedon a setof measurements directly acquired on a sub-­‐set of power supplies.
Again two types of quantities have been measured: physical characteristics (e.g., weight and volumes) and electrical characteristics.
The reported analysis is addressed to characterize the behavior of the tested objects in terms of energy efficiency and correlations among the different aspects, e.g. efficiency, weight and volume versus suppliedpower. Those last parameters being directly correlated to the environmental impact of theequipment.

This GeSI report analyses the most commercially available mobile phone chargers and a number of handheld devices to evaluate the correlation between their rated power and mechanical and electrical characteristics. The report's findings served as crucial input in the development of an international standard by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for a one-size-fits-all power adapter and charger to reduce e-waste and greenhouse gas emissions.  Recommendation L.1000 on Universal power adapter and charger solution for mobile terminals and other hand-held ICT devices provides high level requirements for a universal power adapter and charger solution that will reduce the number of power adapters and chargers produced and recycled by widening their application to more devices and increasing their lifetime. The solution also aims to reduce energy consumption.

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