80 Plus Bronze Power Supplies - Efficient and Cost-Effective

80 Plus Bronze Power Supplies

80 Plus is an American initiative to increase the efficiency of PC power supplies. Depending on the achieved efficiency, the tested power supplies receive a promotional certificate in six different efficiency levels. All power supplies are tested at 20, 50, and 100 percent load to simulate different load levels of real PC systems. Since 2005, over 6,000 power supplies have been tested. Power supplies with 80 Plus Bronze prove to be a popular compromise between energy efficiency and acquisition costs and dominate the market up to the mid-range.

80 Plus Bronze Power Supplies with at Least 82 to 85% Efficiency

There are two different versions of each certificate, which, in practice, prove to be equivalent: Standard power supplies are tested with the 115-volt input voltage common in the USA. For the 230-volt EU versions, the test is conducted with the 230-volt AC voltage common in Europe. Although the requirements for the EU versions are two to three percentage points higher, this mainly offsets the advantage gained from the changed test scenario: All wide-range input power supplies gain slightly in efficiency when switching from 115 to 230 volts.

• 80 Plus Bronze power supplies must achieve at least 82, 85, and 82% efficiency at 20, 50, and 100 percent load.
• Power supplies certified according to the 230-volt EU standard exceed 85, 88, and 85%.
• All Bronze power supplies thus meet the efficiency requirements for complete systems according to EU Regulation No. 617/2013 and may therefore continue to be used by system integrators after July 1, 2014.

Different requirements apply to redundant power supplies for data centers and industrial power supplies.