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Posted by Lee on March 9, 2008, 11:12 am
Rec'd an email from an electrician I'd contacted for an estimate a while
back. He was advertising some sort of power saver
(http://www.power-save1200.com/). I don't know enough about electricity
to know if this is legit. Something about saving electricity from
motors? Just curious, because with just having bought a new house, I've
moved out of the area he services anyhow, but if this is something that
actually works, I may eventually look into it.
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Posted by dpb on March 9, 2008, 11:30 am
Lee wrote:
> Rec'd an email from an electrician I'd contacted for an estimate a while
> back. He was advertising some sort of power saver
> (http://www.power-save1200.com/). I don't know enough about electricity
> to know if this is legit. Something about saving electricity from
> motors? Just curious, because with just having bought a new house, I've
> moved out of the area he services anyhow, but if this is something that
> actually works, I may eventually look into it.
While theoretically true, for typical household motors are not the
significant fraction of overall load--resistive loads are. In this
case, difference would be small. Not zero, but unlikely to be a major
difference.
The reference in the link to the DOE information is to a brochure on the
large motor efficiency initiative wherein the example is for a single
100 kW motor load--not exactly the dishwasher or furnace fan.
--
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Posted by Joe on March 9, 2008, 11:56 am
> Rec'd an email from an electrician I'd contacted for an estimate a while
> back. He was advertising some sort of power saver
> (http://www.power-save1200.com/). I don't know enough about electricity
> to know if this is legit. Something about saving electricity from
> motors? Just curious, because with just having bought a new house, I've
> moved out of the area he services anyhow, but if this is something that
> actually works, I may eventually look into it.
Appears to be a power factor correction capacitor and if your system
power factor is indeed rather low, it could help out your electric
bill. Power factor tends to get out of whack the further from the
generating source you get. That's why you see those mysterious groups
of pole mounted boxes with twin insulators hooked up to the medium
voltage power lines way out in the country. Without them the power
company would lose money shoving more current through the wires.
In some areas the power company will measure a customers power factor
on request. This would help you judge whether any device would be
beneficial.
Some high line welding equipment can be supplied with capacitors
already installed to calm down the current draw and there likely other
examples in the market. Bottom line, if you are in a new subdivision
at the end of miles of power lines with no PF correction this device
could be useful. OTOH, there may be similar less pricey ways of adding
capacitance to your system. Maybe some of the EE's in this NG can
comment better on the topic. HTH
Joe
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Posted by professorpaul on March 9, 2008, 9:29 pm
This issue is power factor.(EE, long ago and far away). As one other
poster points out, it is only an issue with pretty large motors -- 10
HP or better. Stuff you have in your house isn't going to make a
difference. The power factor correction capacitors the power company
has takes care of the problem on their side, especially for large
industrial loads.
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Posted by HeyBub on March 10, 2008, 9:54 am
professorpaul wrote:
> This issue is power factor.(EE, long ago and far away). As one other
> poster points out, it is only an issue with pretty large motors -- 10
> HP or better. Stuff you have in your house isn't going to make a
> difference. The power factor correction capacitors the power company
> has takes care of the problem on their side, especially for large
> industrial loads.
(Probably even longer ago and farther away) But can't a suitable capacitor
change the phase on a motor such that the reactive load is out of phase with
the resistive load thereby fooling a KWH meter into thinking the motor (say
on an AC unit) is all reactive and therefore not measured?
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