Cisco Live: Microsemi Reveals Latest Green PoE Midspans

Microsemi Corporation has unveiled their new high-efficiency Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) midspans, which they claim could cut energy costs by up to 50 percent compared twith other midspans and PoE network switches.

The PowerDsine PD-5524G Energy-Efficient PoE (EEPoE) was announced at Cisco Live London. It is compliant with IEEE802.3at 2009 standards for delivering up to 30 Watts of power to network devices including IP cameras, access control systems and thin clients, all over the same standard CAT5 cabling as data.

Green credentials

The PD-5524G midspans builds on Microsemi’s PD-9500G family, reducing power dissipation and cutting energy consumption by delivering power over all four pairs of cabling. The claimed 50 percent reduction in consumption adds up to approximately 240 kiloWatt hours in annual power savings.

“Microsemi has achieved yet another major milestone in the energy-saving capabilities of PoE technology,” said Amir Asvadi, vice president and general manager of the Analogue Mixed Signal Group at Microsemi. “Our PD-5524G EEPoE mid-span extends the industry-leading efficiency of our PowerDsine family by using a smaller internal power supply that can later be augmented with external supplies to increase per-port capacity as power-hungry devices are added to the network.  Customers can optimise their power infrastructure for the highest possible efficiency today, and increase power delivery as demand grows.”

Microsemi’s green midspan is priced from $1,799 (£1,140) per unit and boasts the ability to add external power supplies for power scalability and “the means to back-up priority ports in the event of a primary supply failure”, according to Sani Ronen, director of marketing for PoE systems.