Electrical Question
 

My neighbor was at the local home show and he came across this product which appears to be a voltage regulator and a capacitor. The companies claim is you recieve the power from the power company @ 118 volts and the extra 8 volts is being released as heat, they say thier product stores this 8 volts of power for use at a later time. He paid $500 for it and with some kick backs from the power company and govt. it will offset but I was questioning if this was a scam or not

Sounds like a nice con... lol...

110/240 etc are approx voltages into a house - load on the network etc will cause voltage to dip etc in the region as the power companies manage the demand. If you get 118 into your house your applicances will get 118v.

Also mains power is AC - If I recall my school physics class a cap isn't going to do anything with AC.

Agreed with Arct1k, sounds like your neighbor got took. On weekdays at the plant I worked at, the voltages would fluctuate from 108-120 throughout the day with no effects. Most 110-120 volt appliances and what not are designed to take input voltages of 105-130 and will use whatever they are given being more efficient at the higher than lower voltages.

Hmmm, it sounds like the neighbor did not understand the full story of what they were buying. Storing 8v out of 118v is preposterous. Alike Arct1k said, appliances use step down transformers (switching and linear) and can use whatever they are fed withing a range of around 110-120v AC. To store AC, you could use coils and caps (once AC rectified into DC), but all that would do is even out the load (remove current spikes) from motors being turned on.

However, there is "power factor" which varies with the type of loads present in a home (capacitive vs inductive). Pure inductive and capacitive loads produce voltage to current phase shifting of 90*; -90* for inductors, +90* for capacitors. Resistive loads have 0* phase shift. A place with a lot of motor loads will have a huge phase shift. But you can add capacitor banks to offset the inductive phase shift (+90* + -90* = 0*) to get a more resistive-looking load. Of course, the amount of capacitance to add depends on how many motors are running (and how big they are), so a device can be added that measures the phase shift and adds in whatever capacitive load needed to offset the inductive load. This is probably what your neighbor bought.

Could be a power conditioner or something to do with power factor correction.

What do they call this thing your friend got?

Power Factor correction is mainly used in 3 phase motor applications. Especially larger ones. It lines up the magnetic harmonics inside the motor by altering the sine wave on the phases to match the winding better.

Power Factor correction also works with single phase motors although the benefits aren't as pronounced.

My experience with power factor is what sikeston34m has described and would have no real application in a home. In a large industrial/commercial application, it is something to be considered/investigated and can save you money if handled properly. Most large power companies have specialists who consult with businesses in regards to this.

This sounds to be related (at least in a marketing way) to those magnet thingys that you put on your auto fuel line and it triples your mileage...

This thread: here


My head: here

Power Factor Correction is a reality. The Power Company that serves the Cold Storage Facility where I work, measures our Power Factor. If our Power Factor falls below a certain percentage, we are penalized for it. I believe where they draw the line is somewhere around a 95% PF.

Our PF usually runs around 79% to 81%, depending on the season and average KW consumption.

It's always amazed me that the Power Company can and does measure how effeciently the power used. I believe they are measuring feedback.

We are always (24/7) running 750 Compressor Horsepower and ten 10 horse evaporator fan motors.

IF we had Power Factor Correction, it could equate to a savings of 1000 bucks a month off the power bill. Around 8% of the Total Bill.

100% agree for commerical premises with heavy motor use but not sure of any real benefit in the residential home...

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

Actually take that back... Per the followng study there is a net benefit but only when you consider the cost / impact of power generation. I'm suprised that the factor correction would not be done at the sub-divsion level.

http://www.nakahoma.com/Res%20App%20Power%20Co.pdf

My guess is they bought something like this for about $400

http://www.saveenergyllc.com/Residential.html

We experienced the same thing at my previous company. If we had spent the money as was suggested, our savings would have averaged out about 8-12% they had said. The problem was that for the expenditure, the payback would have taken ten years. Since the company was on the verge of selling, corporate had no desire to expend that much cash into something that offered the current investors little to no payback.