I recently read a portion of an IEEE paper that deals with AC Magnetic Phase Balancing. It is dated 2/9/03 and discusses one of these devices in detail. It had a unique coil arrangement and ended up with a very high leading power factor. The report indicates there are KW savings. The only thing I have is a pdf. but I could send it to interested persons. Let me know. I only read a portion of the paper becuase like all good IEEE papers it was leaving me in the dust after a point! This is changing my opinion a bit. I asked the manufacturer's representatives just what the technology being employed was and got no good answer when initially discussing these things. I'm not sure if this would apply on single phase; the paper is dealing with 3 phase motors.

I just talked with representatives about this equipment today. They smiled politely and said yes they were aware of the power triangle but that there must be some power released when capacitors are connected as they have documented kwhr reductions. They use a Fluke power analyser and an adjustable capacitor to determine just how much kvar is to be added. This is top secret information and they do not share the value in their reports. I was stunned by that as I was wanting to calculate kvar savings since we are charged $.24 per kvar at peak kw load. They may provide this information in an upcoming report. It looks to me like they are calculating the kva difference from no correction to corrected, multiplying by running hours, and calling it kwhr savings but I'm not sure. It is difficult to answer THEIR question which is: How does this work in a residence where there is no power factor involved but they still see reductions in the bills; although one of the two presenters said it did not work as well in his new house........ We are reducing the I2R losses in a commercial facility when correcting at the motor load. This has to help.

The device takes advantage of how a utility charges for power for residence. The utility meter measures the current and makes an assumption o. The power factor for a kw measurement.

If you can add capacitance you can correct the power factor for your inductive loads and thus lower your current. This will make your watt lower too since the Paf is assumed.

You are actually taking advantage of how the utility blow this seems unethical to mee

LOL too small to really do corrections. Plus there was a lady who sent me hundreds of emails and tried to get me to sell the same stuff under a different name with the same phone number. She was Dottie Eller.

Most utilities in my area do not charge residential customers based on power factor. Therefore, to market capacitors for residential savings is ridiculous. Where will the savings come from, reduces losses in the wiring, come on. Additionally, UL has published a bulletin with a kind warning, UL approves the device as safe, not that it saves energy. I'm getting tired of seeing these types of advertisements.

20% savings in KWH? Come on! I call BS. For residence maybe 5% savings in KVAH which is no where near the same thing. Am I missing something?

I think maybe energy 101 is in order here. Energy is not "consumed", it is converted. Water produces force( ie pressure) to move a wheel.(presure converted to motion) the wheel turns the generator which converts the motion to electricity. Our household electricity is converted to heat, light and yes, even to motion (fans, dryers,ect.) We pay for energy, we pay for the energy we "use" by volume ultimately. Fact of the matter is, you can't get more out of the bucket than it can hold!!! Simple enough?

I have personal installed the capacitor banks to commercial jobs to bring the lagg of inductance closer to unity. We use an occila scope to measure inductance then use the kvar formula to get the right amount of capatance to equal. We try to get the normal running load. It does work if you have large out of phase conditions, lots of motors. In a home there is not inductance loads plus it would need to percisly matched to work for your motor or inductance loads. So with the proper engineering in a large commercial application, correction capacitors do work, in residential application they are not effictive enough to justify the cost.

I purchased the Power Save last year and I have experienced a 10% reduction in my home. I am an electrician of 18 years and am not an engineer, so i don't know all the technicals. I just know it works. I have not become a distributer, but I have encouraged others to buy it. With an all-electric home, it just makes sense to do it.

Does SNAKE OIL ring a bell? If their claim were true the government would require every home and commercial building to have one. The last "funny" I was told was a "new product" saved all the surges coming down the power line, recycled them and therefore reduced the energy bill.

The sad part is people want to think they are getting a deal and companies like this sell these products every day. Those doing the installation, if professionals should loose their ticket.

Does anyone know of any residential utilities that measure KVA on their meters. I am not aware of any. I get product questions from customers of mine on a regular basis and tell them that power corrrection with capacitors is a sham because even if you could correct the PF you are still not getting billed for PF you are getting billed in watts. As I am writing this, I have on my desk a brochure for a product called a V-Blox. this is another product like your discussing. It claims to provide energy savings by "cleaning up" and "optimizing" your incoming power with a TVSS. These scams seem to be coming out unto the market in full force, preying on people that dont know any better. As a contractor who wants to do the best things for my customers, I appreciate the information you put out on this subject to help inform the industry and the general public. Thanks Mike!

Mike

No UL or other OSHA approved listing it will not be accepted in NY State.

I meant to add CE is a European Conformity Standard not a US.

1. There is no information as to the size of the capacitor, but it really doesn't make any difference. 2. Adding a capacitor to an inductive load reduces the apparent amperage, but does NOT reduce the kilowatt hour consumption of the inductive load. Kilowatts are not the same as KVAs. A kilowatt is a measure of the real work being performed, not KVA. 3. We regularly install capacitors for our industrial customers who are being billed bu their utility on KVA Demand. If the user is being billed on KW Demand, the capacitor will not save money. 4. All utilities I know of bill residential customers on Kilowatt hours, and if there is a Demand Charge, it is KW Demand, not KVA Demand. 5. By reducung the amps on an inductive load there is a small amount of savings in line losses through the wiring to the load. (less heat, less line loss) However the capacitor itself gives off waste heat. Any heat saved or lost is translated into kilowatt hours. We feel the line loss savings is very nearly offset by the heat losses of the capacitor.

My recomendation: DO NOT BUY THIS ITEM !

I have to add my two cents: I was approached by one of these companies two years ago to act as a distributor. They presented a very compelling demonstration at their corporate offices. I decided to purchase five units to try them on my own house, and on some of my employees' houses. I followed my energy bills for the next few months and compared them to the previous two years (not very scientific, but it was all I had!). After about six months, I confirmed that I was experiencing lower bills--roughly about 10%. I even put one on the model home of one of my customers, where the A/C and pool pumps run 24/7. They experienced a documented 20% savings over the course of six months. I finally decided to take the plunge and buy in to this product. Unfortunately, the economic climate in my part of the country is such that it's very difficult to get folks to come off of $500 for one of these things, but for the one's I've sold, I have no regrets that I've sold someone something that doesn't work. It worked--and still does--for me.

I saw this type of snake oil being sold 30 years ago. Yes, it will correct the power factor. Yes, it will reduce the amperage. Yes, it will reduce the heat. NO, it will not reduce the wattage. Your electric bill is based on KW/Hrs. not Amp/Hrs.. What it will do is help the utility supplying the power as it will decrease their losses. This is why most utilities require a minimum customer PF of 80% or higher.

A good article about True, Reactive (Phantom), and Apparent power is located here.

http://www.faqs.org/docs/electric/AC/AC_11.html

I inslalled one of these in my house and it does work. Being that it has capacitor's it does act as a TVSS but its purpose is to adjust your power factor to a higher level. I have saved between 5 & 10 % on my power bill. This device works on motors, so if you don't have or use many motor driven device's you want save much money. If you have a low power factor you will draw more current. This device increases your power factor which reduces your current needs. Before this device is sold the power factor is to be checked. If you have a 90 % or above this device will not save a great amount of money. But the lower the power factor the more money you will save. I in no way indorse this product have not sold this product. I have 200 dollars in mine and this is how mine worked. My final thought on this item if you have a low power factor this device will save some money.

Those of us who have been in the industry for a while have seen these devices and claims recycle about every 10 years. The first thing that you should remember is that Utility meters measure kW hours, not kVA hours. In essence they are measuring the usable energy consumed in the system. This has been mentioned many times in the comments that appeared in previous discussions on Mike's website, particularly by John McComb who is a utlitiy representative in South Florida who specializes in power factor correction and standby power sources.

As a Contractor many years ago, I did install power factor correction devices in a commercial application. It was at a shopping mall known as the Falls Mall in South Florida that had dozens of circulation pumps and fountain pumps, These devices were installed at each pump motor controller location, sized according to the motor that they served and were connected directly to the motor circuit, so that they only operated when the pumps were actually running. This may have been one of the few applications where the customer could actually calculate the savings because some of the pump motors had special meters attached for the purpose of measuring the efficiency and consumption before and after the PFC devices were attached.

In any event, this was a very specific application and there was no magic device added at the service point that offered overall power factor correction.

Perhaps the most revealing evidence to these claims should be that all third party media investigations have always been to challenge the manufacturers and sales reps of these products to show us the empirical testing that will support their claims. Not once have we seen an independent Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory report that can substantiate the energy savings claims made in the ads, flyers and on the websites.

Go to the following web site to read about Steven Bruce Fish, CEO of KVAR Energy Savings,http://www.stevenbrucefish.com/

Power usage is most efficient when the power factor is near one. It costs the utility more in wire and in losses when the power factor is low. The power factor is dragged down by motors and raised by capacitors. The thing is that if the power factor is raised too high, it goes backward - or leading. This is a bad thing. Various electronic devices and metering can become confused. The power factor does not stay the same in any facility. Motors turn on and off. So, the capacitors have to be either automatic - very expensive - or they have to be sized conservatively. Capacitors take up room, they get hot and they age.

There are certain power quality advantages to capacitors including some TVSS benefit. But, as has been mentioned, there aren't a lot of motors in the average home (fan motors for residential loads are small and don't use a lot of power) and the utility doesn't tend to charge homes for KVA. Though I have seen at least one case where they do. And this should be the only example of saving utility charges. I wonder if other changes were made at the same time for those of you who saved money - like an energy efficient furnace being installed. The capacitor changes the KVA, not the KW. A power factor of one means that the two are the same. Which means that utility losses are minimized. If the utility isn't charging you for potential losses, which they usually don't for residential users, then you aren't going to save money because your usage, or KW charges, are the same. You have to really understand your bill to determine if they are charging you for KVA.

I've tried to express everything with less lingo, don't know if that was helpful or not.

From Ken,our corporate energry manager:

"Modulating capacator banks have been around for quite a long time and they have an applications in commercial/office building and industrial sites in areas where utility companies charge for KVARs (most do but generally the cost is very small, less the 1/10th of a cent per KVAR). The small induction motors found in a house (refrigerator compressor, HVAC fan, ceiling fans, etc.) are fractional horsepower in size and would not require a lot of KVAR to get moving. Also, most residential utility rates do not charge for KVAR.

From a cost benefit point of view this product would not make economic sense because the payback period may be greater than the life cycle of the equipment itself.

UL listing is under CCN CYWT, where the assesment standard is UL810, which is the generic standard for the safety of capacitors - which does nothing to indicate efficacy.

At least 14 years past, at a former employer, we designed a single and a 3-ph active PFC for the DoD - just put it inline at bldg xfmr. Very effective design, but very expensive. It reduced power consumption as a 'side effect' - the main purpose was mitigation of conducted line noise.

In the Phoenix, AZ service area for Arizona Public Service (APS) they require capacitor banks for services taking primary distribtuion voltage (12.47 kV). This is required to maintain load capacity on their grid and for power factor at the end point facility. On the project I was on 1100 KVAR capacitor banks were required for 10 light rail traction power substations. I've also installed hard-start capacitors on AC condensor units to alleviate stress on the compressor motors during times of low utility voltage levels during peak usage periods. If the advertised device contains capacitors of sufficient size it would help lessen the load demand during startup for AC compressors as well as refrigerator/ freezere compressors and other high curent draw motors.

I can see this working on 3 phase systems where the utility has KVAR metering and is penalizing consumers for a lagging power factor. But for three wire single phase installations I can see no benifit. ELI the ICE man is what this about and phase relationships. The small fractional horsepower motors in dwelling units don't cause much inductive reactance (XL) anyway.

Obviously, applying a one-size-fits-all box of magic capacitors possibly augmented by a few MOVs for TSS is going to cause leading PF problems and actually increase the current draw during hours when the magic box is connected, but no inductive/motors are running. So these products are doing something smart ~20% of the time, and possibly causing problems ~80% of the time.

So IF we were to do 'something' we need a non-magic small but correctly sized capacitor of the 'correct' type, installed at each individual load, so that the capacitor corrects the PF only when that load is 'ON'? If so, then where is the easy-reference chart from these people for selecting the correct capacitor-in-a-box to install across the leads to each motor in a typical residential home? You would think these products would love to get into a better market position where they could sell an entire "lineup" of such products, with various sizes and colors and flavors depending on the hp and voltage (120 or 240) ...except that after we're all done installing them and our PF at the house is a nice perfect 1.0...the kWh measured at the meter has changed by approximately 0.0. The ONLY way an actual change could be seen at the meter, in my opinion, is if the Utility cheaped-out on the meters and bought kVA meters that simply 'multiply' by some assumed PF, possibly adjustable for calibration. If so, the true kWh would still be the same, but the meter would be fooled by the addition of capacitors that allowed the user to operate closer to 1.0 PF than the assumption made by the Utility.

Every Utility I know of uses residential meters designed to measure Watts, and I do not know of any of the newer digital "smart" meters that would be fooled. If real people were truly seeing a reduction in the kWh correctly measured by their meters, for the exact same loads, the Utilities would be selling these things...no, wait, they'd be giving them away! In fact, it would be good for the Utility to invest in these if they worked "as advertised." Utilities would love for all users to be universally around 1.0 PF...but there is no incentive for the Utility to have residences sitting around en-masse with a leading PF screwing up the grid 80% of the time.

Most if not all of the claims, in my opinion, are suspect.

There have been similar products in the past, and given the presentation of this equipment as a novel idea, infers that the prior products are no longer available. These prior products, not being available any longer, is likely becuase their claims were not supported in actual use.

The reason for my suspicions are as follows. There are two major components to the AC power coming into any facility. Those two are 'reactive' power (to magnetize motors and transformers, among other uses), and 'real' power (to provide light, run motors, etc.). Only the 'real' power portion does actual 'work', and normally utilities only bill on real power consumption.

Since capacitors can only store/recycle reactive power, not real power; their is no real power they can recycle. And therefore, I do not see how they will save any signifcant energy

Snake oil - Again! Read the referenced Mike Holt newsletters. Basic Fact of Nature and Utilities' Billing Methodology: If there is no residential power factor penalty, then adjusting power factor does not result in any financial saving for the rate payer, period, regardless of any claims to the contrary. Those claiming savings based on "evidence" don't understand experimentation or use sleight-of-hand to fool potential customers. Heinz R.

Having worked in the metering department and testing meters for accuracy, I checked one of the supposed power saving devices, we used a known load and checked it then installed the device and made sever checks on itthe only change we could see was the dist sped up by a fraction of a second. this test you count and time the revolution of the watthour meter. conclusion it did not perform as advertised.

when we see capacitor banks on power poles you know there was or is a power factor issue and it is needed to balance large inductive loads such a motor or compressor would exhibit. I have an open mind but think the savings may not be evident in a home. It would be interesting to place a scope on the line and see lag-lead waveforms. My conclusion I am a skeptic!

A similar unit calledEZpower was loaned to the electrical department at the local voc tech school. We connected identical motor loads with low power factor to this unit and to an identical set without theEZpower unit connected. The local utility gave us two kilo what hour meters for the test, These meters are the same ones that they use. After 72 hours of continuous run time the energy use was the same. These things are a sham. Power factor correction on residential use make no sense since the power company does not keep tact of it. Stay clear of these, Dick C

It depends what pf you start with on the savings. This unit for the cost of a stand alone surge? A lot of city pf are good so the savings depend upon where you are. Is it what it is I don't know. how much Kvar correction?

Power Factor is one of those topics that can be hard to understand and/or explain to people who aren't electrical engineers or electricians, but the following link does a decent job of discussing these types of Power Factor Correction devices in layman's terms. http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/powerfactor.html

IT IS A SCAM!! here is why. There is "Real Power" and "Apparent power" This product is a power factor correction device. In essence it tries to correct the Lead or Lag of the current to voltage towards unity (PF of 1). SO if you look at AC current with an amp meter it surly indicates a drop in current YOUR SAVING MONEY!. WRONG It all depends on WHAT the local utility actually bills you for REAL Power or APPARENT Power. MY utility bills for Real Power so the power factor could be 2 or greater and it doesn't cost me an extra nickle. You pay for this box but there is no savings ( except for the Utility company which saves on energy delivery due to less loss etc. So that's the story. If the Utility companies install digital meters and they can get the laws changed THEN this could be a savings. I installed a Dranitz recording power meter on my own house and ran the AC systems ( probably the most inductive items in the house and the power factor (uncorrected) never varied more than 10% to 12%

The purpose of bringing the power factor closer to unity has nothing to do with energy savings. Low power factors cause conductor heating-motors run hotter but they draw the same true power at 0.7pf as at 1.0pf. Purely resistive loads don't affect pf but inductive loads-such as motors-do. I can't imagine the average household having such inductive loads that they drop the pf much below 0.9. Using capacitors to raise the pf will cause a small drop in conductor heating. However, large capacitors are not only potentially dangerous but can cause their own brand of head aches with electronics. The standard watt hour meter measures true power not apparent power. The use of CT's to measure power use is not valid for billing as their use is to determine a current which may be higher due to apparent power.

YES THIS IS A SCAM!!!

I'd like to sell you my PMM also to go along with it, (my Perpetual Motion Machine)