Report Sounding board meeting EMV Knowledge Platform March 12, 2020

The Dutch EMC-ESD association was, as in previous years, invited to participate in the sounding board meeting of the Knowledge Platform Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) and Health on March 12th. During these sounding board meetings, invitees can give their opinion on the policy. Jan-Kees van der Ven represented the association here and this article is a summary of the discussed points, which may be of interest to you as a member.

The EMV Knowledge Platform is a partnership between RIVM, TNO, DNV-GL, AgentschapTelecom, GGD GHOR Nederland and ZonMw and has set itself the goal of: “Playing an active role in addressing and answering questions and concerns in society about the health effects of electromagnetic fields in a way that is understandable, also for laymen”.

General

Two important changes have been implemented within the knowledge platform. Firstly, from this year until 2023, the financing will be provided solely by the government, while in the past the knowledge platform was financed with public (government) and private (telecom providers / energy grid operators) funds.

Secondly, Milieu Centraal has indicated that it no longer has the capacity to support the knowledge platform as a result of the energy transition. This means that they have withdrawn from the platform.

The figures presented show that the new design of the website: https://www.kennisplatform.nl/, mainly in Q&A (question and answer) form, is successful. The number of visitors increases significantly and certainly when there are topics like 5G in the news, this is reflected in the number of visitors.

Results last year

Over the past year, the knowledge platform has focused primarily on expanding the Q&A methodology, concentrating on the following topics:

Plans for the coming year

In the coming year, the knowledge platform wants to focus on the following topics:

• The new precautionary policy for magnetic fields from high-voltage power lines and other sources of electricity supply
• Information for professionals
• 5G developments
• The new ICNIRP guidelines

In addition, they want to define various target groups, so that the task of informing society can be performed even better. Think for example of professionals and Electrosensitives.

Electrosensitives

For these electrosensitives, the knowledge platform explicitly does not offer any help, but only information. Nevertheless, they do think along. For example, two subjects were discussed extensively within the sounding board group. Firstly, to what extent the SOLK (Somatic Unexplained Physical Complaints) approach can be useful for electrosensitives. The outcome of the discussion was that this approach can help, certainly if the treating specialist has experience with the problems that electrosensitives experience. The second subject was the establishment of a white or light grey zone. These are areas, designated by the government, where electromagnetic fields are prevented as much as possible. The idea behind this is that electrosensitives can come to rest, even without medical necessity. Such white zones are already a well-known phenomenon abroad. The knowledge platform is prepared to support this initiative towards the minister, despite the fact that there is no scientific indication that there is a relationship. However, the platform will not be responsible for such zones. On 4 April, a contact day was on the agenda of the EHS Foundation with the main topic "white zones". However, this day is postponed due to the Coronavirus.

Presentation by the Telecom Agency and RIVM on 5G

The Netherlands Telecom Agency together with the RIVM have recently conducted a literature study (peer reviewed & grey literature) supplemented with measurements on exposure to 5G. The reason is the need for information that can be disseminated (such as via the knowledge platform) and unambiguous measurement methods. The following emerged from this study. During the rollout of 5G, the 700 MHz bands will be auctioned first. These are the frequencies that must cover larger areas of up to several kilometers. The 3.5 GHz bands will then be auctioned. These are used for small cells and have a range of several tens of meters. In a few years, the 26 GHz bands will be auctioned. These bands are mainly intended for indoor use. Furthermore, there is not much literature available on exposure and 5G.

The need for unambiguous measurement methods follows from the new techniques. Within the 5G technique, mMIMO (massive Multiple Input Multiple Output) beam forming technique is used. This allows fields to be bundled and thus radiate and track specific receivers. This does make measuring field strengths on such beams complicated, since they only focus on the receiver and this is normally not the measuring antenna. In addition, the question is what the influence of multiple users is on the field strength.

Fields are generated by the network antennas and the telephone. The telephone mainly exposes the users, while the network antennas can in principle expose everyone. Due to the new technology / frequencies, the network side has first concentrated on field strengths within small cells. Here, maximum field strengths of approximately 6 V/m are measured. This is approximately 1 % of the basic restriction. As a result of the fields that the telephone creates, the user is also exposed to fields. These have an intensity of approximately 85 % of the basic restriction, which is comparable to 2G, 3G and 4G telephones.

The conclusion is that when using 5G technologies, exposure remains below the EU recommendations, but the question is what will happen if more and more devices switch to this technology.

New precautionary policy

From DNV-GL (independent of industry and government) a presentation was given about the new precautionary policy of the government, which focuses on fields as a result of the electricity distribution. This policy is based on the advice of the Verdaas CommissionThe most important advice is to scrap the annual average advisory value of 0.4 µT, for information in a home approximately 0.1 µT is generated by your own equipment. In addition, it is advised to apply the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achavable) and to communicate as openly as possible about all magnetic sources in the electricity grid.

ICNIRP guidelines

In early March ICNIRP issued its new guidelines regarding exposure to EM fields from 100 kHz to 300 GHz. A brief summary was given on behalf of the Health Council. For high frequency fields, only the risk of heating has been scientifically established. This has not changed since the publication in 1998. The risk of nerve stimulation for lower frequency fields has been covered in the meantime with an edition for low frequency fields. However, this new edition has become more detailed, especially for frequencies above 6 GHz, and the scope of the guideline has been extended from 10 GHz to 300 GHz. The recommendations of the European Commission are based on the previous version of the guideline and the European Commission is considering adopting the new recommendations. The knowledge platform has now first impression of this guideline on its website.