Here another page, where about a third of the way down, there's a lis of
links of review and tests of these types of devices. The video of the
TV station test is unfortunately a dead link.
http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/06/16/useless-power-savers-the-saga-continues/
Brian Weeden wrote:
Power factor (ie, power drawn by non-resistive loads) is of course very real
- but I don't know of any situation where the power company is calculating
your power usage on anything but watts. So for a home user it matters not,
while for the power company it matters quite a bit and is a a very good
reason to add capacitance to the system.
Here's the best quote I've found about this "Power Save 1200" device:
What is in there is a set of one or more capacitors. You can buy them at
Radio Shack for a few bucks, and achieve the same thing.
I agree that this is a scam. They are telling no lies, but they are pushing
a product that costs far, far more than it will give back.
You can only save what you are wasting. If you don’t have much by way of
motor loads, and my house has virtually none (i.e., no significant KVAR
loads), then there is nothing for this device to save you. That is the
“unspoken lie,” the basis of the scam.
To answer your question, and it is a good question, this device would not
“keep electrons away from the inductive loads, while letting them flow
otherwise.” What it does is cause the electrons to flow back and forth
between the inductive loads (in the house) and the capacitors (inside the
device). This happens downstream of the meter, and therefore the utility is
not measuring this current. If you did not have the capacitor connected,
then there would be, in addition to the “real load” drawn by devices inside
the house, an exchange of current between the inductors (inside the house)
and the utility’s inductors (i.e., the transformer on the pole across the
street). That additional current will pass through the meter, will be
included in your monthly electric bill.
So as I said earlier, they tell no lie. This thing can save money. But it
can only save money if the house has enough inductive load to cause the
electric bill to increase significantly. Nothing that the do say is a; but
they do not “tell the whole story,” and that, in my opinion, constitutes a
lie.
And:
Every residential power meter I've ever seen only charges for real power.
Vars are not charged. So other than copper losses, I don't see how
residential power factor correction could save any money at all.
Let's take a look at the copper losses. As I understand, this thing is
installed in the main panel, so any inductive load copper losses from the
panel out to the device are not mitigated. So the only piece left is the
copper from the main panel to the meter - generally fat wire and short. Not
much loss there.
Now for the case where the inductive device is off. Now the caps make the pf
go leading, current is up. So what is being saved while the load is on is
wasted while the load is off. Gee, sounds like the customer is as well off
with the $aver as without it - well, not quite as well off, they have less
money.
Save 25% on ones electric bill by getting rid of copper losses - That's a
flat out lie. Save 1% on ones electrical bill - That's a lie.
Personal opinion: Any company selling them is part of the lie.
Okay getting off my soapbox - thank you for your time
http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?s=5c199bd383ae45fc7568930297c4074a&t=91211&page=2
---------------------------
Brian Weeden
Technical Advisor
Secure World Foundation <http://www.secureworldfoundation.org>
+1 (514) 466-2756 Canada
+1 (202) 683-8534 US
On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Anthony Q. Martin <[email protected]>wrote:
Power factor correction is very real...in fact, I was under the assumption
that power companies already do this based on expected home usage. When
they don't do this, they will end up moving more energy over the
grid...costly for them since there are losses there.
---- Joe User <[email protected]> wrote:
Fuel for the fire...
http://www.power-save.com/1200.html
--
Regards,
joeuser - Still looking for the 'any' key...
"...now these points of data make a beautiful line..."
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