Following the failure of the Power Line Telecommunications (PLT) amendment of CISPR 22 to reach the Committee Draft for Vote (CDV) stage, the European Commission has asked the European electrotechnical standards committee, CENELEC, to produce a European standard for emission limits for PLT apparatus. This will be a stand-alone standard rather than an amendment to EN 55022 (the European equivalent of CISPR 22) that can be listed in the Official Journal of the European Union under the EMC and R&TTE Directives and give a presumption of conformity for emissions requirements under those directives.
The intention is to produce two parts to the standard: part 1 for in-house apparatus and part 2 for access apparatus. These parts will describe test methods and limits relating to the PLT aspects, the remaining aspects will still be covered by EN 55022, which will be referenced from the new standard.
Such a standard would also allow the wired network standard, the EN 50529 series, to be completed. Parts 1 and 2, dealing with telephone lines and co-axial cables respectively, have recently received a positive vote, but the third part, dealing with mains networks, cannot be completed until a standard for the terminal apparatus is available.
The new standard will therefore fulfil the joint functions of providing a standard for apparatus, and enabling the network standard to be completed.
Timescales are tight; the intention is for the draft for in-house apparatus to be ready for vote by July 2011 and the draft for access apparatus to ready for vote by December 2011.
CENELEC has set up a new Working Group, TC210/WG11 to carry out the necessary drafting, and this will hold its first meeting 24 – 26 August 2010, in Brussels, Belgium.
Brian Jones is an independent EMC Consultant, specializing in compliance with European legislation and standards. He is also secretary to the CENELEC EMC committee TC210, but is writing here in a personal capacity, and his views do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization. He may be contacted at emc@brianjones.co.uk
