The Latvian capital Riga hosted last 7-9 October the 37th meeting of the Administrative Cooperation Group in the scope of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Directive (EMC ADCO). The gathering was chaired by Stephan Winkleman from the German national regulatory authority (NRA) and attended by 38 representatives of 24 member states. Dorota Papiewska represented the European Commission (EC).
The following issues stand out among those dealt with at the meeting:
- Sixth market inspection and control campaign - this campaign focused on solar panel inverters; 14 market oversight authorities took part. Between 1 January and 30 June 2014 a total of 55 products were evaluated. The compliance level was very low (technical and administrative requirements). Only five (9 percent) of the evaluated equipment items were in compliance. Most of the evaluated equipment (32, or 58 percent) originates in the European Union (EU). Given the results obtained, the solar panel inverter market is currently not prepared to obtain the presumption of conformity in accordance with the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Directive;
- Problems evaluating risk in the scope of the EMC Directive - it is often hard to determine the impact of non-compliant equipment on other equipment, especially when basic EMC requirements are not complied with and other radio equipment and services are affected. The fundamental problems arise when parasite emissions go beyond established limits and interfere with other devices. The immunity limits of the interfered equipment are unknown, so it is hard to ascertain whether the problem is in the equipment emitting above the limits allowed by the EMC Directive or in the disrupted equipment because it does not respect the immunity set out in the R&TTE Directive standards;
- Generic standard versus product standard - in the Dutch NRA’s opinion, when a device is to be removed from a commercial space/shop it should be more rigorously evaluated (product standard requirements) than harmonised generic standards envisage (as currently done), because it is not known where that equipment will be used. The Dutch NRA therefore suggests that the EC or the European Electro-technical Standardisation Committee (CENELEC) should be questioned regarding the proper procedure for verifying conformity, namely with respect to application of the harmonised generic standard requirements or the product standard requirements;
- List of equipment categories that shift from the EMC Directive to the Radio Equipment Directive (RED). Situation of some equipment as from 16 June 2016:
- radio equipment below 9 KHz shifts to the RED Directive;
- radio and TV receivers shift to the RED Directive;
- telecommunications terminal equipment meant to be connected to a network termination point shift to the EMC Directive;
- products combined with telephones that have a digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (DECT) system remain in the scope of the RED Directive; - Workshop on transposition of the EMC Directive - scheduled for 12 November in Brussels.
This group’s next meeting will be held on 21-24 April 2015 at a location still to be determined.
