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NORTH AMERICAN MARKET FOR ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS
CSA has made it a general practice for the last 10 years to accept all electrical components that have been tested and certified by accredited testing and certification organizations. This CSA general practice has been in place since April 1994.
IT COMPONENTS PRACTICE
IT manufacturers expressed a deep concern about the time and expense involved in retesting components to meet the requirements of testing and certification organizations who would not accept each others components.
The result – in Oct 1994 - UL agreed to accept CSA certified components in IT end- products.
We estimate that this IT practice affects about 25% of all components sold in the North American electrical industry. But this is a very rough estimate because many of the same components remained unacceptable under UL policy when used in non IT end-products.
NOVEMBER 10, 2003
On November 10, 2003, we signed the first such agreement.
This agreement covers selected components used in specific Low Voltage Distribution and Control Equipment, or roughly 10% of all electrical components.
Although limited in its scope, this agreement is a significant accomplishment because it represents the first sign of change in UL component acceptance policy.
But as significant as the new agreement is, the fact is, it covers only about one quarter of the components of interest to NEMA members.upplement the
NEMA MEMBERS WIN!!
While CSA has championed broader component acceptance for many years, our efforts have accelerated in the past 24 months.
During that period, The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (or NEMA), a U.S. trade association, and Electro-Federation Canada (also known as EFC) have been encouraged by their members to pursue component acceptance across a broader range of electrical components and end-products.
We estimate that NEMA members are involved with roughly 40% of all electrical components sold in North America.
At the urging of NEMA and EFC, UL and CSA entered negotiations toward a new component acceptance agreement to supplement the 1994 IT practice.
MORE WORK TO DO
Not covered under the agreement are many components used in lighting products, appliances, power tools and other electrical end-products, manufacturers of which are represented by groups including the American Lighting Association (ALA), The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM), the Power Tools Institute (PTI), the Air-conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI), the Motor and Motion Association (SMMA), the Transformer Association, well as NEMA and other groups.
We estimate that this remaining unserved group represents about 35% of the North American component market.
As you can see, while we have made great progress toward our goal of providing component acceptance more broadly in the electrical industry, there is still more work to do. The majority of components -- we’d guess 65% or more -- are not covered under existing agreements.