Net Work
Alan Winstanley
This month, Net Work warns readers to beware of fake, false or misleading CE markings, and
looks to the future of metering and power.
The genuine CE mark, distinguished by the
character spacing and circular font.
W
hile surfing around a
Facebook group dedicated to
electrical equipment, I came
across an interesting thread discussing
‘CE’ marking on electronic gear and
components. What caught my eye
was the seemingly serious suggestion
that a logo similar to the European
‘CE’ mark was used by some Chinese
manufacturers to mean ‘China Export’
rather than Conformité Européenne.
This particularly piqued the writer
who, half his career ago, was involved
with ISO9000 quality management,
grappling with countless British Standards, Euronorms (EN regulations)
and all manner of quality assurance
regulations. The European Union is
a ‘single market’, so in the interests
of ‘harmonisation,’ EU regulations
are supposedly transposed into the
member states’ national laws and this
includes product testing, safety and labelling. Consumers could therefore be
confident that uniform quality standards were consistently adopted across
the Union and, regardless of which EU
country the item was being marketed,
the product would be ‘compliant’ with
all prevailing laws. For anyone who’s
interested, the official (English) website of the European Union – https://
bit.ly/pe-oct21-eu – highlights the
work of its 55 departments: bedtime
reading it is not!
Here in Europe, everyone is familiar with the authentic CE mark that
appears on all manner of goods. It indicates that the product complies with
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appropriate legislation. Most ordinary
consumers view the CE approval mark
as a symbol denoting product safety.
For instance, a toy that complies with
EN71 (the Toy Euronorm) won’t have
any sharp edges, finger traps or easily
detached small parts, and it will be
both non-flammable and non-toxic.
Electronic equipment sporting a CE
mark will comply with the European Electromagnetic (EMC) Directive,
Low Voltage Directive and probably
lots more besides, while items of PPE
(personal protective equipment, such
as facemasks or goggles) will have a
CE mark signifying rigorous compliance with some very stringent laws.
(For just masks, one can only marvel
at 48 pages of EU PPE legislation at:
https://tinyurl.com/2pt2trnd). Many
EU laws are ‘sold’ in deceptively simple-sounding terms, but the devil is
usually buried in the technical detail.
The genuine article
An eagle-eyed user will soon spot a
genuine CE mark: the letters are derived from two sets of intersecting
concentric circles, and when viewed
on a 20×20 grid the semi-circular
symbols are actually 20-units high
but 11-units wide (ie, one unit greater
than being semi-circular). The strokes
are three-units thick. Critical are the
separation between the two letters
(see https://bit.ly/pe-oct21-euce) and
the perfectly circular style of the font.
In addition to a product’s CE marking, a ‘technical dossier’ about it will
be held by the manufacturer which
contains fully documented evidence
of product testing and approvals. Local
authorities may demand to see it in
the future. A so-called ‘EU Declaration of Conformity’ is also signed by
the manufacturer as proof of product
compliance; they’re a familiar sight,
and are often included with the product’s instructions.
Unfortunately, worthless variations
of the authentic CE mark are sometimes found on a range of disreputable
imported goods. The reason is likely
to be very simple: the goods are fake,
non-compliant and haven’t been tested,
A non-compliant CE mark found on a USB
charger – compare the character spacing.
but given a quick glance a bogus CE
logo can pass as the real thing. The
CE letters may be bunched up closely
together or otherwise misshaped, but
they are not the real deal. To put our
cards on the table: it’s totally inconceivable that, of all the designs, logos
and typefaces that could be used by
foreign makers, a supposed ‘China
Export’ symbol should be dreamt up
that coincides so very closely with the
genuine CE mark. As an example, the
author snapped a lookalike CE mark
on a USB charger: see above and note
how the CE letters butt up to each other.
Furthermore, many such goods
are completely untraceable, with no
details of manufacturers provided
anywhere: for example, an admittedly decent-quality pair of binoculars
recently sourced by the author from
Amazon has a meaningless name on the
strap and no maker’s details anywhere.
Such anonymity makes it impossible
to trace non-compliant goods back to
their source and only raises suspicions
about their quality or warranties.
Sayonara to the CE Mark
Dodgy goods probably won’t have an
EU Certificate of Conformity either
(asking for one is likely to be fruitless),
Practical Electronics | October | 2021
Above and below, the UKCA (UK Conformity
Assessed) mark will apply for new stocks of
items placed on the market in Great Britain
from 1 January 2022.
electrical gadgets, for example. These
are often sourced by younger people
online who may not realise that they
are being duped into buying potentially dangerous goods.
Now that the United Kingdom has
left the EU, the country is in the midst
of introducing its own quality compliance symbol. Readers will gradually
start to see the new UKCA (UK Conformity Assessed) mark, for new stocks
of items placed on the market in Great
Britain from 1 January 2022. In fact, it
already appears on a Samsung Pocket
SSD purchased by the author recently. Both solid and outline forms of
the rather dull (and probably easily
copied) logo will be seen. Also, UK
Declarations of Conformity will start
to appear with new goods in coming
years. Due to the Brexit transition
rules deal, the CE logo, not the UKCA
symbol, still prevails in Northern Ireland for the time being. There is more
information on the new UKCA at:
https://bit.ly/pe-oct21-ukca
Buyer beware?
A cynic (or realist – take your pick)
might suggest that ‘CE’ actually originates from the first truly pan-European
language and should be interpreted
as Caveat Emptor – Latin for ‘Let the
buyer beware’. (It’s unlikely that a
Roman first uttered this snappy phrase
a couple of millennia ago, but it certainly has several centuries of use in
English Common Law – see: https://
bit.ly/pe-oct21-cvl)
Not-so-smart meters
A UKCA and genuine CE mark appearing
on a Samsung SSD in 2021.
and even if there was one, the writer
would treat it with some scepticism
anyway. It’s not just the CE mark that
some producers play fast and loose
with, some electrical goods sold in
the UK sometimes have familiar but
bogus BSI (British Standards Institute)
‘kitemark’ logos too. Yet makers and
importers get away with this deception and a myriad of phony products
appear online in all the usual places.
Having stated there is no such thing
as a recognised ‘China Export’ mark,
the writer was genuinely shocked to
see the idea given credence on some
respectable-looking technical web
sites. It is a simple rip-off of the genuine CE mark and anything that bears
a phony CE mark should be given a
wide berth or, at the very least, treated
with extreme caution. Look especially closely at cheap imported mains
adaptors, power cords and similar
Practical Electronics | October | 2021
outlined how British consumers were
being pressured into installing smart
meters in their homes, meters sometimes being used as bait to attract
cheaper tariffs. It’s a perverse distortion to suggest that smart meters are
merely benign devices here to help us
‘save money’. As I wrote in December
2020, this decade-old EU energy policy
was intended to make the European
energy market more resilient, combat
climate change and (whisper) establish
an ‘internal market’. With all sorts of
political problems looming with gas
supplies in mainland Europe (including the controversial NORD2 pipeline
from Russia to Germany, see Gazprom’s
website at: https://bit.ly/pe-oct21-gaz),
the future of power transmission has
never been less certain and control
of much of the European mainland’s
gas supplies has been allowed to fall
into Russian hands.
Smart meters are all about handling
‘Demand Side Response’ (DSR) which
means ‘encouraging’ consumers to
reduce consumption at times when
capacity is limited. This may ultimately involve penalising consumers
by charging more when power is consumed during times of low (cheap)
supply. For example, when there is
little solar or wind power available but
the weather is wintry, so nuclear and
fossil fuels are used. Or when there’s
too much air conditioning operating
during summer periods.
Coaxing us to use less
Near real-time raw data is already
captured that could easily show what
power is being used, and when, by
consumers, thanks to smart meters reporting it over the Smart Meter Wide
Area Network (SM WAN) every 30
minutes or so. In the future we can
expect to be nagged, either by text
message or messages popping up on
our ‘In Home Displays’ (IHDs) imploring us to reduce our demand. In the
not-so-distant future we can certainly expect to see our behaviour being
Britain’s gas and electricity suppliers are still pushing hard to get smart
meters installed in our properties, and
although the project roll-out seems to
have been lost among all the disruption
caused by Covid-19, the eye-watering cost of the programme continues
to spiral upwards. Furthermore, UK
consumers have now been warned of
looming price increases from October,
just as winter beckons, as utilities
compete for supplies of gas
and wholesale prices edge
upwards. Back in 2019 the
Department for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy
reckoned it would be at least
another five years before the
smart meter programme starts
to deliver net cost benefits
to consumers, but the programme has slipped behind
and has been plagued by problems that ought to have been
resolved by now.
Back in the December 2019 A SMETS2 domestic gas meter – coming to a house
and January 2020 issues I near you... soonish.
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(Above) Early trials by H21.green are under way to test hydrogen
as a source of heating in Spadeadam, Cumbria in the north of
England. Note the yellow supply pipe around the test houses.
(Below) The houses are built on the appropriately named ‘Hy Street’.
Says it all: a British Gas smart meter booking page goes 404.
modified as we become conditioned into using less gas
and electricity this way, and instead use ‘green alternative solutions’.
Some fundamental problems still exist with smart meter
technology today, particularly first generation SMETS1
(Smart Metering Equipment Technical Specification)
which may ‘go dumb’ or IHDs (In-Home Display) that stop
working. Trying to change your supplier – which we are
all being actively encouraged to do in order to beat the
price rises – can open a whole new can of worms for consumers. If you’re enjoying a lower-priced tariff, when that
deal ends customers can expect a startling rise in costs
when they face the new market prices.
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The British Gas smart
meter revolution continues
to clunk along mindlessly
with sub-par meters and a
hopeless online booking service. Our editor was sent an
invitation, claiming: ‘We’re
installing smart gas meters
in your area. Our engineers
are upgrading homes near
you to the latest version of
smart meters – the next generation SMETS2 meters, so you
can keep control of your energy. Get in touch to make an
appointment today – installation is free. Make sure you
don’t miss out. The sooner you get in touch, the quicker
we can install your new meters.’ Every link for this truly
resistible offer led to a web page that is symptomatic of
the state of the industry – as shown above, left.
All eyes are looking towards the eventual supply of hydrogen as one of the ultimate clean fuels and it’s possible
that domestic gas heating systems could be converted to
run on hydrogen instead. But it’s not trivial to change
over, as the government has admitted that boilers (furnaces), pipes and smart meters themselves (!) would all need
converting due to the chemical and physical differences
between methane gas and hydrogen. Trials are underway
by the consortium H21.green (https://h21.green) to build
a hydrogen gas ‘microgrid,’ including blending hydrogen
with natural gas, with a test site in Cumbria having three
demonstration houses powered by hydrogen. More details
on the YouTube video at: https://youtu.be/GNIGJzbERg4
Somehow, I suspect that although the power-gen industry
may promise much, if the smart meter rollout is anything
to go by, energy consumers will face a lot of delay and
frustration for decades to come.
In earlier columns I wrote extensively about the upsurge
of electric vehicles, notably made in China. Warnings have
already been issued about vulnerabilities in some EV charger systems at home which could be prone to hacking. In
Britain, it has been announced that by 2024 a North Lincolnshire motorway could become the first ‘electric road’
to power electric trucks, charging them from overhead
cables in a way similar to how trams were powered more
than a hundred years ago. What goes round comes round,
but will there be enough electricity to meet this spiralling demand?
See you next month The author can be reached at:
alan<at>epemag.net
for more Net Work!
Practical Electronics | October | 2021
