power save devices

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paul renshaw

paul renshaw

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Cordova, Maryland
Has anyone installed or had any real world experience with these power save devices? From what I can see, they alter the power factor to bring it closer to unity. Is there really that much use for it in a normal residential situation? I have installed caps in industrial faciliteis that were penalized for bad power factor, and it really helped their monthly bills. Do the residential meters even keep track of total VA? I thought they were strictly KW meters. Their video shows the amp load decreasing when switched on, and it shows the power factor lowering, but you can not see what the total KW or KVA is or how it changes in the video.
 
It's in the "Relocation Forum," an area accessible only to moderators. Not to worry, there are several other, similar threads about these non-saving devices.
 
It was discussed very thoroughly and makes a lot of sense why they are not going to work. One question, how do the new digital meters work as compared to the older glass/disc meters? I assume they do not factor in PF either.
 
I just went on the power-save website and read a bunch of testimonials on how they saved. How can these be considered accurate when there are so many different variables from one month to the next, let alone one year to the next. One guy compares his usage from a year ago, and how now with the power save it was lower than the same period last year, did he also record the outside temperature and general usage of anything else in his house? doubt it.
 
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I just went on the power-save website and read a bunch of testimonials on how they saved.
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Pay someone enough and they will write a testimonial for about anything.

I personally don't put much value on testimonials, if the company can't provide hard data to prove their product works and must rely on testimonials to prove their product works then I would think long and hard before I purchased the product.

JMHO,

Chris
 
I have a buddy who is a contractor and was asking me about them because he was talking to a rep to be an installer/salesman for them. I will re-enforce what I said when he first asked me, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
 
I posted this elsewherebut here goes, it seems logical to me that if these things worked would we be arguing about how useless they are or would we be running out to buy them.

I know I would have installed two by now...
 
Ran out of time editing

Lets assume we are penalized for poor power factor. One of these devices has a fixed level of capacitors so if the I had PS device installed and I was operating a pure resistive load, electric heat and incandescent lights would the power factor be poor in the other direction? All the pf correction products I have seen were total service and corrected power factor to close to unity by stepping in caps based on load. The other systems I have seen had pf correction at each motor and were on line only when the motor was running. This device is on line all the time no matter what type of load is operating.
 
brian john said:
I posted this elsewherebut here goes, it seems logical to me that if these things worked would we be arguing about how useless they are or would we be running out to buy them.

I know I would have installed two by now...
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I agree, these things have been around in one form or another for awhile, and if they really worked people would be beating down the doors of suppliers to get them.

Chris
 
brian john said:
. . . if the I had PS device installed and I was operating a pure resistive load, electric heat and incandescent lights would the power factor be poor in the other direction?
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Yes. The pf would become "leading," a term that essentially means the capacitors are winning, and the inductive loads have been overmatched. As I recall (vaguely, at best, as my classes on this topic were 20 years ago - yikes), that will cause the voltage to increase, with all the unpleasant things that come along for that ride.
 
Years ago when the local POCOs were having a shortage on generation they offered rebates to industrial for installing PFCC's. Never once did they encourage homeowners to add capacitors.

Now the local POCOs do not even penalize industrial accounts for 'bad' PF. So, in this area the only energizing saving reason to install capacitors is to reduce a demand charge.
 
I think the real question is whether it's ethical for us to install these devices if asked by a customer.

Is everything that we happily agree to be ethical business to do always necessary and/or effective?
 
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