New type of Circuit Breaker

What’s new about it? Comparing the photo with an old CBi breaker lying around on my desk I can’t spot any difference.

For me it’s new. I’ve never seen an energy efficient circuit breaker. (I thought the load could be energy efficient but not the CB)

The breaker I have here has the same “energy efficient” sticker and has a date code of 2021, so they’ve been marketing them as such for a while.

I’ve never paid much attention to that claim, but you’ve piqued my interest: Comparing the claimed losses of the CBi breaker with other name brand breakers (Hager, Gewiss) I also have lying around here I can confirm that they’re very similar. I can’t find any numbers for the cheaper Onesto and no-name breakers, so one has to wonder how wasteful the budget stuff is.

The losses are specified at full load, however, so it’s probably not something to worry about.

Oh I’ve seen that sticker on breakers sold at the hardware store for the better part of a decade already, it is certainly not new. I’ve only seen it on the breakers at the local hardware store (Builders warehouse), I’ve never seen it on a breaker from the local electrical supplier.

The major claim being:

For thermal-magnetic devices, the initial (cold) resistance is higher than hydraulic-magnetic devices and so such devices heat up more.


CBI energy efficiency catalogue is dated end 2013 and the CBI web site has the above posted link since at least 2015.

CBI appears to be the only manufacturer to apply the energy rating (A, A++) type labelling (and only in the local market).

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