100% energy saver in the market

[spinner]

Yep, Pese is right.

Pese,
Are you saying, if i go to each motor and inductive load in my home, and correct the power factor, the meter/counter will spin faster, cost more?
and are you also saying that its illegal to do so?
DrSpark

No, DrSpark, the opposite - using a valid (and legal) "Power Factor (PF) Correction" (PFC) system would cause your meter to spin "slower", and your costs would be less (for what you really get)...
I think you already knew that, huh?



Anyway, many PFC methods are a very good thing (and legal!) - for both the customer and supplier (hmm?! ), because (as already mentioned) the Power Company charges you for "Watts" while your appliances are (in reality!) consuming "Volt Amperes" Reactive (due to a phase shift caused by any non pure ohmic load)...

So, a compensated el. grid consumption (approaching a PF=1) means lower bill for the consumer, and less load (lower peaks, costs for grid maintenance, ..) for the supplier.
Although you may have noticed that power supply companies are not exactly very enthusiastic to teach people how to pay less...  


If you use devices with rather low PF (e.g. less than 0,9) (any inductive/capacitive loads like motors (el. tools, ventilators, pumps,  .. ), tiny transformers, switcher supplies, mobile phone chargers,  electronic lamps, etc, etc..), you'll actually pay more for the electricity!

Why? Low PF device draws more current (uses more "real Watts") for equal performance as would a successfully compensated device. Or, it will perform worse under the same power conditions...
And who is paying the difference for that "apparent", not very usefull power (energy) difference - losses?
The consumers, of course! You see, the Company will get the money from you anyway...No matter how screwed your grid / appliances really are... You'll pay.  That's how it is for the last +100 years..


Industrial consumers (big power demands / large electricity bills) usually have their own "power factor compensation systems". (beside other "specialties", they have meters installed for both the Real (W) and reactive power (VAr).) They want the "VAr" meter to be as low as possible every month...
It is in their direct interest to minimize el.energy expenses as much as they can!

OK, we "the small consumers" would like to lower our el. bills, too! And yes, there is a way (there are actually many ways (like instant success of replacing the "old" lighting tech with a novel, power saver type,  ...) - which nowadays many of the people are aware of.., but here we are talking about less obvious (I'd say one of the less known) method as a possibility to further reduce our el. energy  expenses)..

There are ways (PFC devices) which helps us to do that, but they're usually rather expensive (you must consider that such devices must "be blessed" with many different certificates (even from your energy supplier), and usually have to be installed by a qualified personnel/organisation...)... So, it's a decision, a balance between a high cost (for a legally purchased & installed device) and a cumulative savings... It may take 20 years before such device would start to bring you the results... (think about a solar panel systems- how long it takes before they actually starts to bring you a real "profit"..?)...

But I think this may change in the (very) near future. After all, we are not just searching for "new energy", etc.. We should do our best to reduce even the current use of *available* energy...


Depends of what your average el. consumption (and how "reactive") really is, it would be realistic to expect maybe a 5-10% savings with a PFC system (for average users (imagine how many houses/flats there is...! A BIG opportunity for all the people...), but if you run a business with many el. driven machinery, your savings can become very obvious !). Yes, possibly (or "maybe") even some 40%! That's really something, no?

But certainly not a 100%. (lol) Or, (!!!), making your meter to "spin backwards" (>100%!)...
That's why the device presented in this thread ("Bondee") is suspicious! (and as far as I know, illegal in most of the countries )

If the device is able to make your meter to "spin backwards", it is definitely "messing" with the metering principles.
And, it is not a result of ANY KIND OF "FREE" ENERGY.
Cheers!

[helmut]

Pese,

Are you saying, if i go to each motor and inductive load in my home, and correct the power factor, the meter/counter will spin faster, cost more?
and are you also saying that its illegal to do so?

DrSpark

@Dr Spark
Tere is no need to correct the power factor on each inductive load.
The best place to correct the Powerfactor is right behind the first Line-switch after the meter/counter.
Then all consumers are on a optimised Line.

helmut

[drspark]

Pese,

Thank you, for making that clearer. For a night I wondered if I had learned that wrong.

Helmut,

There are many inductive loads here. To correct PF at the fuse box would require some smarts(cpu) and the ability to change capacitance in real time.  Not impossible to do, just more difficult and expensive..  Or a large variable capacitor that is servo controlled.

Group,

I purchased one of these little meters that count cost and display many things about the device plugged into it. Like cost, PF, Watts..
http://the-gadgeteer.com/review/kill_a_watt_ez_electricity_usage_monitor
for use correcting some of the larger loads in the home.

The meter says the CF (spiral cost saver bulbs) have about a .5 power factor, my guess is they cant fit the cap in there.

There could be a European version as constants in the calculator would only have to change from 120v/60hz to 220v/50hz.

DrSpark

[Creativity]

.....

Amen!  for the sake of clarity i went to check fridges at my shop.At all of them i found capacitors hanging next to the compressors(and i think they are there just to optimise power factor).So i think it is not so bad situation as u put it into the picture.Anyhow caps have quite big tolerances +/- 20% so i guess it is not so sweet and smooth optimisation afterall.
Also fans are without caps.

OK.we know the current situ,the method is well known to handle it.We have some electronic engenieers hanging around on this forum,and it seems no rocket technology.So...
Let us come with some schematics and test it out.It won't be expensive device anyhow.Besides we can make a big impact on our everyday bills and if it works well we will recommend it to all of our forum users and their friends and friends of friends.
We have a very good chance to actually make something and ease our everyday flustration with constant failures on our projects here :|

if we would like to make it a real cooperative project of OU,i started a new topic for it in  a proper section of OU forum:
http://www.overunity.com/index.php?topic=6487.0

[drspark]

If government really wanted to make a big dent in the energy crisis, they could make it LAW that electricity suppliers meters correct the power factor or calculate the cost as such. Giving them(suppliers) a good reason to make all meters perform the correction.

DrSpark