For those asking “Why bother? The energy usage is tiny”.
https://energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu/product-list/smartphones-and-tablets_en#consumers-1
Mobile phones and tablets produced under these rules will save almost 14 terawatt hours in primary energy each year by 2030. This is one third of the primary energy consumption of these products today. The new rules will also help to optimise the use and recycling of critical raw materials.
In 2030, the savings on EU27 acquisition costs are € 20 billion, which combined with € 0.6 bn lower energy costs and € 0.8 bn additional repair costs, leads to € 19.8 billion (22%) expense savings (€ 98 per household).
So basically, by promoting energy efficient and repairable devices, the plan is to save €20bn annually in savings and not to generate 14TWh of electic power across the EU. That power saving is about the annual output of a single nuclear reactor. (1.6GW x 24h x 365.25d = 14TWh)
I like the other info, but I feel like energy efficiency is completely useless as a metric for phones. They already use such miniscule amounts of power that it really doesn’t matter that much, especially compared to appliances.
Minuscule? A modern phone has a battery around a third or half that of a laptop (5000mAh x 3.7V = 18.5Wh). They also start having processors similarly capable. Gaming and other intense tasks can consume surprising amounts of energy. They put more and more emphasis on cooling, some phones including a fan. If we continue this way it starts to become expensive…
I mean I already wrote this out in reply to another comment but by their own numbers on the site announcing this they say that all phones combined yearly consume ~ 5.2 TWh, that’s 0.2% of the EU’s total anual consumption of 2.7PWh. They expect to reduce the power consumption by 20% (which I find questionable but ok) by 2030, reducing the consumption by 1.1TWh, thats just 0.04% of the total consumption. It really doesn’t matter that much. And as for your comment, laptops are already also extremely efficient, so it’s not like their power consumption is that significant either.
For context, a day’s charge of a phone is equal to running a typical 2kW heater for 1 minute, a years worth of charge is equal to running it for 6 hours. I like the label and don’t think it’s a bad addition, I just feel that that information could have been replaced with more useful stuff (like how ethically sourced it was or how long it will be supported for), the energy efficiency feels more like doing it just so it looks the same as the other ratings without much purpose for it.
Those ideas are also good, but aren’t mutually exclusive, you could have both.
PS: gaming laptops are not particularly efficient
Btw, regarding gaming laptops, it’s all relative really. I have a laptop I use as a server that runs 24/7 and it only uses like ~20W on average. That’s about 15kWh/month, which is realistically not that much, about 2.5€ with our electricity costs.
Here’s the database: https://eprel.ec.europa.eu/screen/product/smartphonestablets20231669
Model numbers can be found on the back of you phone or on https://www.ifixit.com/
What do they actually mean by “model identifier”? Serial number? IMEI?
