Powersave 1200
Powersave 1200
(OP)
A customer inquired about using Powersave 1200 to reduce his electric bills by 25%. Has anyone heard of this and know how accurate this device is? Apparently, it just requires plugging in to the breaker panel. Can someone please explain how this device operates and how it is able to reduce the energy bills? Thanks!
http://www.power-save.com/
http://www.power-save.com/






RE: Powersave 1200
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Powersave 1200
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RE: Powersave 1200
BC Hydro, a provincial Crown corporation here in Canada has some information about these things. It's a scam; if there was a way to get free energy you bet the utility/generator would be doing it. They talk specifically about the "energy savings" claims.
http://w
RE: Powersave 1200
Watch the demo video - they show that the current is reduced by their device. However, I imagine there are very few if any residential hydro users who get billed for current. The power company bills for power in kW for the vast majority of residential customers.
It is possible to have a fairly high inductive reactive or capacitive reactive current draw on the power system. Your kVA draw will be much higher than your kW draw. However, residential customers do not get billed for kVA so it's irrelevant.
RE: Powersave 1200
The last example in the demo video is a little strange.
I am trying to imagine what normal residential loading will draw 8.35 amps at 0.059 PF. The real component of the current works out to about 1/2 amp. Did anyone notice the little minus sign next to the corrected power factor? The power factor has passed unity and gone leading. Most of the 4.36 amps of "corrected" current is reactive and is being drawn by the unit itself, maybe. I say "maybe" because the readings don't seem to reconcile. The calculated real current changes from about 1/2 amp uncorrected to over 4 amps corrected. There should be almost no change in the real component of the current.
This would be an 800% increase in real power as seen by the revenue meter and billed to the customer. Not a good selling point.
Something is very wrong with the demo.
If you buy one of these you will be buying an electrical device from someone with little knowledge of basic electricity and no knowledge of residential power billing practice.
The timing of the marketing is right on. The units will be bought and installed in time for the normal drop in energy consumption in the spring.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Powersave 1200
RE: Powersave 1200
For example, if most of the customer's kVA comes from a constant load, and the PF is very steady, a passive capacitor might work well to improve PF. However, if the kVA is intermittent (a large motor with lots of starts and stops) then the best solution could be using a VFD to drive the motor instead of a conventional starter.
RE: Powersave 1200
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If it is broken, fix it. If it isn't broken, I'll soon fix that.
RE: Powersave 1200
I don't know of any utility that bills ONLY for kVA use. They are billed for kWH, then their bill is adjusted for kVA DEMAND. Demand charges have a time factor in them, usually 15 to 30 minute sliding windows. So as mentioned above, adding a capacitor will have little effect on his demand charges (unless it is one HUGE capacitor?).
And read the above responses more carefully. It will not reduce the power consumption by any appreciable amount. It only reduces the current on the load side of it. But the kW draw from the utility remains the same. There is an incredibly minute amount of reduction in I2R losses in the wiring, but in an average facility with properly sized conductors, those losses are so small as to not even be noticeable on a monthly basis. On one installation I investigated for a light commercial customer with about 8,000 sq. ft.of mostly lighting and HVAC loads, I calculated his I2R savings at roughly $1.20 per year, making his ROI out to about 180 years!
Like I said earlier, these things are scams, or so close to it as to be indistinguishable. They are intended to prey upon the fact that most casual users will not understand the relative complexities of how they pay for energy.
"If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe." -- Abraham Lincoln
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RE: Powersave 1200
On commercial I have seen kW plus KVA demand.
On industrial I usually see kW plus power factor penalty. In some areas KVA demand charges may be applied monthly or yearly.
Industries that have a seasonal work schedule may be subject to a yearly demand charge.
The points are,
1> You must know the basis of your customers charges before attempting to reduce the charges. You must determine whether the demand charges are based on kW demand or KVA demand.
2> There is a science and an art to power factor correction.
The science on a large system is to use a power factor controller and switched capacitors, or identify the cause of the high demand and correct it at the source.
The art is to determine how many KVARHrs a month are required to bring the power factor above the penalty cutoff. A small bank of capacitors connected 24/7 will go a long way towards bringing up the monthly average power factor. A large motor may be be slightly over compensated so as to add VARs whenever it is running. The art is to avoid a situation where the system is over corrected too much.
3> Capacitors won't do much for a kW demand. That usually needs customer education and an amended operating cycle to effect savings.
4> If the customer is paying a power factor penalty, it is usually more cost effective to do a survey and apply the correct amount of capacity rather than just throwing random amounts of expensive capacitors and snake oil at the problem.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Powersave 1200
Follow the advice of stephenw22. You have to investigate the reasons for the kVA demand and address them. A canned solution isn't the fix.
RE: Powersave 1200
I'll add that it was funny to watch him give his presentation, and call out TVSS-based energy saving devices as utter crap (not his words), immediately following a presentation by a TVSS device salesman.
RE: Powersave 1200
"If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe." -- Abraham Lincoln
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RE: Powersave 1200
RE: Powersave 1200
I hate going to IEEE Xplore to look things up, though, so for those of you that also don't care for Xplore, or just do not have access, the official citation is:
Energy savings from PQ mitigation technologies[:] Techniques for evaluating vendor claims
Howe, B.
EPRI, Palo Alto, CA;
This paper appears in: Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition, 2008. T&D. IEEE/PES
Publication Date: 21-24 April 2008
On page(s): 1-5
ISBN: 978-1-4244-1903-6
INSPEC Accession Number: 10024875
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TDC.2008.4517263
Current Version Published: 2008-05-12
RE: Powersave 1200
RE: Powersave 1200
Doesn't mean it will save energy as they claim. Just means the capacitor won't start a fire.
RE: Powersave 1200
I looked up some previously completed research on line and apparently a legitimate scientist proved that a large percentage of power may be saved thru capacitive correction of unloaded small motors (I cannot remember the details of the research, but they were not important in leu of next statement). The conclusion of the report was that 100% power savings are achievable by turning off the unloaded motor. The percentage savings were not available on a loaded motor (though power factor correction is a well known science).
The next step after saying I could not verify any theory to support the vendor's claims was to actually install the units at a continuous process plant, on the main power distribution switchgear (this was the vendors recommendation not mine!). I expressed concern about unswitched capacitors being connected to a variable number of motors and possibly causing voltage excursions above nominal during periods of light load. I also expressed concern about the undocumented contents of these magic boxes. The vendor discounted my concerns and claimed the mystery boxes were not capacitors. Installation was completed and there was an "apparent" drop in current at a local switchboard meter. This site was primary metered by the serving utility about 800' away from the switchgear. ABSOLUTELY NO changes in consumption demand or power factor were dicernable on the utility meters with the units switched on or off. This test was continued for several months, eventually the plant asked the vendor to remove the mystery boxes.
We were not funded to verify what was in the boxes nor did I have access to open one up (they were very well sealed).
RE: Powersave 1200
"Save 25% on Your Electric Bill. Don't Be Fooled By Imitators!"
LOL.
Doesn't say 25% of your ENERGY, it says 25% of your ELECTRIC BILL. How do they know in advance that I am receiving a 25% PF penalty?
I clicked through. As to it being targeted towards commercial and industrial customers or residential customers in 3rd world countries who sometimes might get PF penalties? I offer the following cut and pasted from their website:
I added the emphasis, but I have NEVER heard of a single utility in North America who charges residential customers for power factor. This shows me that these guys are truly attempting to scam homeowners. They should be brought to the attention of the FTC, this is an obvious attempt to take advantage of the average homeowner's ignorance about electrical billing.
"If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe." -- Abraham Lincoln
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RE: Powersave 1200
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Powersave 1200
I also was under the impression they were harmful for compresser type of equipment. (What other motors in a home run at partial load?)
And again it has been years sence I saw this stuff. And Tesla probally did not have access to semi-conductor equipment.
RE: Powersave 1200
What you are referring to is what is called a Nola Power Factor Controller, invented by a NASA engineer named Frank Nola in 1969. Different animal, albeit also marketed in some pretty slimy ways lately. PFC controllers came out in the 70s and have resurfaced because the internet has opened up a who new access point for scammers, but it does have a modicum of truth behind it. It does save a small amout of energy on unloaded 1 phase motors, but of course if it is running unloaded, why is it even running at all?
However, that device can ONLY be attached to one motor circuit, NOT an entire house at the distribution panel line lugs, as this Power-Save device claims. These things are basically just a set of capacitors and often a somewhat worthless TVSS. The capacitor is there just to make an ammeter read a lower value on the downstream side. In addition, the ones I have seen just use cheap MOVs as the TVSS, meaning they will work, once, after which you will have no idea they are no longer present in the circuit.
More interesting reading on this subject. Long, but worth the effort if you are reading this thread with a potential interest in these scams.
h
Interesting excerpt from there:
"Reply from: Beanland November 5 2008, 10:50 am EST
I went to the Taiwan patent website and looked at the patent. It is just a capacitor with an on-off switch and a drain resistor. And, the patent was invalidated 9/11/2007 because the patent holder did not pay his annual fee!"
So it appears they don't even bother with the worthless TVSS on this one!
"If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe." -- Abraham Lincoln
For the best use of Eng-Tips, please click here -> FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Powersave 1200