“Intelligent Standby Energy Saver” can Reduce Global Domestic Energy Consumption by 10% and Save the Equivalent of One Half of Europe’s CO2 Output Annually

LONDON - Winning Design Takes Top Prize at Premier Farnell’s Global Live EDGE - Electronic Design for the Global Environment-Awards Ceremony

- A $10,000 USD Premier Farnell Scholarship Announced to Benefit Engineering Students

Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl), the leading multi-channel, high service distributor and its companies (Farnell, Newark, Premier Electronics, Farnell-Newark CPC, and MCM), announces Pedro Rodrigues from Portugal as the Live EDGE 2008- Electronic Design for the Global Environment - Challenge winner. Mr Rodrigues is awarded a unique prize package including a $25,000 USD cash prize and support services valued at an additional $25,000 USD from experts in the fields of design consultancy, marketing, legal and commerce to drive the design towards production. Mr Rodrigues’ winning design is an Intelligent Standby Energy Saver - a system that automatically detects the standby mode of electrical equipment and disconnects the power when it is not required.

(Photo: www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090402/343123-a )

(Photo: www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090402/343123-b )

“This unique power controller design analyses power consumption using an artificial intelligence algorithm implemented on a high-end micro-controller ,” said Pedro Rodrigues, Live EDGE 2008 winner. “This enables the Intelligent Standby Energy Saver to distinguish between the “standby” and “non-standby” modes even when faced with complex consumption patterns and, thus disconnect the load. The device has sensors that detect changes in the environment and intelligently restore power, when required.”

Power savings are achieved by the intelligent control of power to such consumer items as televisions and entertainment systems, whereby the accumulated “standby” power is effectively reduced.

The Intelligent Standby Energy Saver design takes a radically different and technically superior approach to determining power usages,” said Sir Peter Gershon, Chairman of Premier Farnell and Live EDGE judge. “The idea of using a neural network algorithm to accomplish Mr. Rodrigues’ energy saving design is original and clearly more efficient than conventional energy savings methods.”

The first highly commended $5,000 USD winner of the Live EDGE challenge is John Tillson from England. His entry, a PowerShift Power Controller is designed to switch off critical loads during supply/demand imbalances, easing the burden on national power grids at times of peak demand. The system works by detecting the peak times of electrical power usage, then switching off any suitable electrical appliances to lessen the total load presented to the power grid.

The second highly commended $5,000 USD winner is Antonio Lalguna from Spain for his design of an automatic irrigation system to improve Photovoltaic systems. This device is aimed at improving the efficiency of solar panels by 30%, using a rainwater harvesting system to automatically clean and cool off the panels.

“Our congratulations go out to Pedro, John and Antonio. We truly look forward to helping Pedro register his design and supporting him to take the unit from prototype to production in the coming year,” said Harriet Green, CEO of Premier Farnell. “We feel the Live EDGE challenge provides a great opportunity for electronic design engineers to bring their environmentally friendly designs to the market. We are proud to encourage the design of products that could positively impact the lives of at least 3 billion people worldwide. We will continue to work towards providing the very best service, technology and support to our critically important design engineering customers, like Pedro Rodrigues.”

Editors Note:

The 2007 Live EDGE winner, Mr. John Noble has already taken his design through to completion and anticipates having the product ready for distribution later this year. For more information on his energy saving product visit: www.haikufan.com.

Estimates vary for the amount of electricity used in standby mode but a consensus is that around 5-10%(1) of domestic power is wasted in standby power; A UK Government study suggested 8%(2). Research published by Reed Elsevier(3) states that China needs six power stations running constantly to provide standby power. In 2004 the global annual CO2 emissions were 27,245, 758 thousands of metric tons a 10% saving would equate to over half the CO2 output of the European Union at 4,001,222.

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High resolution images of the 2008 Live EDGE winner and trophies can be found at: www.pinnaclemarcoms.com/PR_PICTURES/Premier_Farnell/LiveEdge_Awards.jpg

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High resolution images of the 2008 Live EDGE winner and trophies can be found at: www.pinnaclemarcoms.com/PR_PICTURES/Premier_Farnell/LiveEdge_Winner_Ck.jpg

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High resolution images of the 2008 Live EDGE winner and trophies can be found at: www.pinnaclemarcoms.com/PR_PICTURES/Premier_Farnell/LiveEdge_Winner_Tr.jpg

About Premier Farnell

Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl) is a leading high service, multi-channel distributor of electronic, and industrial products and specialist services throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. It goes to market with a differentiated value proposition, world-class marketing, a stocked range of 450,000+ products, and access to 4,000,000 more items from 3,500 top manufacturers. The company has group sales of GBP823.1m and over 4,100 employees globally.

While global in scope, Premier Farnell recognizes the individual needs of each market and has continued to internationalize its model accordingly, trading locally under different brand names. Its primary electronics businesses trade as Farnell in the UK, India, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Newark in the US, Canada and Mexico, and Premier Electronics in China. In Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Brazil the operation is known as Farnell Newark.

Premier Farnell has participated in the Business in the Community CR Index for three years and has been one of the ‘biggest improvers’ in the index in the last two years. The company is also a member of the FTSE4Good Index of Corporate and Social Responsibility and has published its own Corporate Social Responsibility report since 2002.

For more information visit the website at www.premierfarnell.com

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(1) A trickle turns into a flood: standby power loss in China: Jiang Lin, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory

(2) TV standby buttons will be outlawed, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article686287.ece; Lewis Smith and Mark Henderson

(3) Standby power use in Chinese homes, Alan Meier, Jiang Lin, Jiang Liu and Tienan Li.

Source: Premier Farnell plc

Contact Details: Jenny Peters, Head of Corporate Communication, Premier Farnell plc, and Asia, Tel: +44(0)207-851-4102, Email: jpeters at premierfarnell.com; Janice Fleisher, PR & Communications Manager, Newark, The Americas, Tel: +1-773-907-5941, Email: jfleisher at newark.com; Jonathan Roberts, Account Director, Pinnacle Marketing Communications Ltd, Tel: +44(0)208-869-9339, Email: jonathan at pinnaclemarcom.com; Claire Haikings, Farnell, Europe, Tel: +44(0)133-2790101 ext 3433; Email: chaikings at farnell.com