My Elmer, W6NTK (SK) his son worked for PG&E. I was 12 years old then but I noticed at his power panel he had a bank of capacitors wired into his panel. He explained to me he had these on to eliminate the big surge when the well pump or any big loads came on. He asked if I remember seeing these capacitors along the power lines. He explained that the power system was a transmission system and that to keep the system in tune they had to add capacitance along the long runs to balance the system. And that he was doing the same on his panel. I asked so does this lower your bill and he said not really but it can reduce spikes in the draw. He then tried to explain some math and being 12 that started sounding like school work and he lost me.
Thank you for brining this up I have not thought about my Elmer in a long time. I wish I had paid more attention to some of the things he taught. Hopefully the group can turn mu 12 year old memory into some theory this old dog can chew on. Maybe I can use this info to reduce power usage at the repeater. :-) -Kevin _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of ae6zm Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 12:18 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Adding capacitors to lower electric bill When in comes to matters of science, there will always be some who step forward with anecdotal 'evidence' that they have experienced something that contradicts accepted scientific knowledge. Using caps to reduce your power bill is one of those myths. Your power meter is a true watt meter, and is very carefully designed and tested to measure, react to and record only true watts, and not react to reactive power. (pun!!) Yes, installing corrective capacitors can reduce your power bill, but not because it changes your meter reading; it doesn't. For industrial users, a poor PF results in penalty charges from the utility, and improving the PF by adding capacitive VAs ( or KVAs) can reduce the penalties, thereby reducing your bill. This is not really a repeater topic, but power bills are a real part of repeater use, so it is useful to understand the real 'science'. Wes AE6ZM & VE7ELE GROL/RADAR ARRL Technical Specialist Lincoln, CA CM98iv --- In [email protected] <mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com> , "Bon & Hal" <bhbru...@...> wrote: > > Bill: > > Check this out. Is It possible that the device might actually reduce electrical usage? > > Hal > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Paul Plack > To: [email protected] <mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com> > Sent: Friday, August 20, 2010 9:27 PM > Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Adding capacitors to lower electric bill > > > > > One company supplying power factor correction capacitors promotes their use on inductive loads only, where it might be a legitimate claim: > > http://www.greenenergycube.com/index.php?support-documentation > > 73, > > Paul, AE4KR >
