IEC Family

IEC welcomed Algeria and Qatar as its 70^th and 71^st members. Chad and Congo joined the IEC Affiliate Country Programme, bringing to 82 the total number of countries in the Programme.

SMB meeting approves Project Committees

The SMB approved in principle the concept of introducing “Project Committees”, based on procedures from the ISO Technical Management Board, the ISO equivalent of the SMB. Project Committees would be set up for isolated projects with a given target date, and which are not in the regular standardization work programme of existing TCs/SCs. They would operate as a combined TC/SC and Project Team/Working Group, and be disbanded once the project was completed.

International Energy Agency joins IEC Group on E³

The International Energy Agency (IEA) agreed to join SG 1 (Strategy Group 1), the SMB group of experts formulating the IEC strategy on standardization aspects of electrical energy efficiency (E³) and renewable energy sources. The SMB had requested the IEA’s input to the Group given its level of expertise on the subject of energy efficiency for its member countries. The IEA acts as energy policy adviser to 27 member countries in their effort to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy.

Kiev's St Michael's golden-domed cathedral
seen from atop another building.

IEC at ISO regional conformity assessment workshop for Eastern Europe

The IEC, its Conformity Assessment activities and three Systems were presented at a seminar organized by ISO in Kiev, Ukraine, where the attendance was from many countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The workshop was designed to provide information on the benefits to developing countries of conformity assessment, as well as on the latest International Standards and Guides, recently updated by the IEC and ISO, which set out the internationally agreed practices for conformity assessment activities.

President speaks at CENELEC Meeting

IEC President Jacques Régis addressed the CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization) General Assembly in Bucharest, Romania. Alluding to the enormous challenges facing the global economy, he stressed how important it was for organizations like the IEC and CENELEC to rise to the expectations of governments and other market players for support and help in establishing regulatory frameworks. Régis talked of IEC-CENELEC cooperation as a model for other regional organizations.

New added-value IEC Standards+ launched

The IEC launched IEC Standards+, a new product comprising a package of documents that includes both the new edition of the IEC Standard and a Redline version where all the changes from the previous edition remain clearly visible, whether they be additions, replacements or deletions. The ability to instantaneously identify the changes that have been made since a previous edition makes far more efficient use of the new content. In all, four IEC International Standards were published as IEC Standards+ in 2008.

The IEC Standards+ concept aims to offer a new approach to various aspects of electrotechnical standardization concentrating on providing value-added services and is therefore not limited to the publication of Redline version of IEC International Standards. The IEC is working on IEC Standards+ training courses, geared towards industry and covering some of the key areas concerned with IEC Standardization. The first training course, “Helping to Achieve Functional Safety through IEC 61508”, is scheduled to take place in 2009. International Standard IEC 61508, Functional safety of electrical/electronic/programmable electronic safety-related systems, is relevant across the spectrum of industry and key to many different business sectors.