Power Conditioners

[Gene Sp]

Hello again guys,

Thanks again for all the answers. Some I don’t fully comprehend because I can’t remember all the nomenclatures. The same applies for all the other threads I’ve read here. Very interesting and informative stuff, but some I don’t know the nomenclatures.

Anyway, as suggested in previous responses to my queries, I am now also researching energy saving devices, as well as acting quite obsessed about saving electricity in order to gain family compliance. (This will be much more difficult once I become re-employed. ;- ) )

So, has anybody had any experience or factual knowledge about “power conditioners, inline, meter based, or whole home units”? As put on another forum, real claims or snake oil??
Please verify or dispel other myths???
A frig and/or freezer will use less energy if it is full rather than near empty??

A light bulb (incandescent) will use more energy to light than to keep lit for a period of time?? How much time??

With a NON digital meter, will a power conditioner / surge protector, ect save any usage from the turning on and off of electric motors, (i.e. frig, freezer, dryer, washer, dishwasher, central heating and A/C fan, exhaust fans ect.)?

BTW, the 55.9KWH per day usage here in our household is based on the average usage per month over the last 3 yrs 4 months.

Again, thank you guys very much for taking the time to help educate this ignorant buffoon in the ways of electricity usage, generation and savings.

Have a GREAT DAY!!!
Gene

[Joe Blake]

"Power conditioners"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_conditioner

are not quite a gimmick, but in my experience, they are not particularly useful. Back in the early days of computers the power supplies of the computers were fairly sensitive to "condition" of the electric power they ran on, and because of this it was not advisable to use a power source which was not a "true sine wave", as opposed to a "square wave" or a "chopped" square wave. But these days computers (and indeed most electronic and electronic devices) are much less finicky about power condition. Certainly I can run everything in my house (that doesn't draw more power than is available) from my inverter(s) which I made sure when I bought them generated pure sine wave. Square wave inverters are generally a lot cheaper, and I'd probably be inclined to spend my (extra) money eg to buy a quality inverter rather than buy a cheap inverter and then add a power conditioner.

The way a fridge/freezer works depends not just on how full or empty it is but other factors, such as how often it opens and whether it's a chest freezer or with vertical doors. To put it in very basic terms the more mass you put into a cooler, the more energy it will take to reduce the temperature to a specific level. But conversely, the more mass that is in there the greater "buffer" you will have, which will slow the rise in temperature for the contents as a whole.

If your cooler has vertical doors, then every time it is opened the cold air spills out and needs to be replaced. If you have a chest freezer, then opening the lid will lose very little cold air so is more energy efficient. The efficiency also depends on the effectiveness of the insulation, the air flow around the cooling coils, ambient temperature and many other factors.

The power consumption of incandescent lights (yes, I remember them, in fact I think I've still got one somewhere ;)) generally isn't affected by whether they're left on or turned on and off as required. However, one thing to be aware of is that the filament is heated up when it's turned on and cools when it's turned off, and though there is a vacuum surrounding the filament, the heating and cooling can cause expansion and contraction of the material and can shorten the life of the globe, as some of the material can "flake off". (This heat can be one of the disadvantages of incandescent light sources as they place extra load on building cooling systems.)

The same can sometimes be said to apply to electronic equipment being turned on and off. Theoretically, when a device (say a computer) is turned on it warms up and expands the soldered joints, then these cool when it's turned off, so this can cause a weakening of the soldered connection, but this is highly unlikely, especially if an appropriate cooling regime is being employed.

I'm not quite sure about your question on non-digital meters, but I've not seen any outstanding advantage of a digital meter vs non-digital, and have used both (but it's hard to get a non-digital meter new these days.)

Hope that helps you along the road further.

Joe

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Gene,

If you're thinking of 'saving' energy by using a power conditioner then I would say they're snake oil. Electrical energy meters compensate for the power factor of the load. Even the old analog ones. How well they do this may be a matter of debate, but the moments with a particularly bad power factor (starting of motors/compressors) are so short that there's little energy going towards that.

As someone else suggested in another thread to your questions, get a Kill-a-Watt or similar device and try to measure where all your electricity is going. That will put you in a much better position to make a plan on where to save.

-RoB-

[Dave Turpin]

Will a rerigerator that is full use less energy than one that is empty?

Yes, once the stuff in there is cooled off. Any mass acts as a thermal capacitor, which evens out the heating/cooling cycles when the compressor is on/off. Thus the compressor starts less often and stays on longer. This reduces the starting surge power consumption. How much it saves? Unknown.

Do you save power by leaving lights on instead of turning them on and off all the time?

No. Mythbusters did a whole show on this one. Complete bunk. This might have been true for carbon filiment bulbs but definately not true for tungsten incandescent, halogen, flourescent, LED or oLED lights.

So what are the best ways to save energy?

Tricks I use: Put all of your transformer power suppies on a power strip with an on/off switch. You would be amazed how much energy you waste just by having transformers plugged in that aren't powering anything. I saved 10kwh per month by doing this just for my home entertainment system. I have a fairly nice system, and I realized that it was stupid to have everything on all the time, and even more wasteful to have the 6.1 surround sound turned on just to watch TV. So I put the stereo, subwoofer, DVD/blueray, Xbox and fan (that keeps everything cool) on a strip with a remote. These are turned off completely unless I am playing games or watching a movie. The TV and cable box are on another strip that I turn on when I want to watch cable.

More tricks: Power conditioners do nothing. At least nothing for you. The utility will actually see a fairly decent reduction in power production if they improve their PF. But like said above, the meter doesn't care. However, LOTS of energy can be wasted in your home by poor grounds and electrical resonance. If you experience these symptoms, you are wasting energy and may not know it:

-You turn on a large load and the lights dim.
-You hear humming from any electrical box in the house.
-Any electrical component gets warm when operating.
-Plugged in cords easily slip out of their sockets.

Any of these problems can show a minor electrical problem or a serious issue. Fixing them can eliminate lots of resistive energy consumption.

And get a laptop to replace that wasteful tower computer. And turn it off when you aren't using it.

[Ralph Day]

Nicely put Dave. I've got the powerstrips all around, but loads have crept up on me over the years. My latest addition has been battery charger/maintainers on my generator and tractor (on timers of course, come on 2x per week for a few hours).

It's good to see some power saving numbers going along with the ideas.

Ralph