eco-scams.com

There are a number of products on the market which claim to save you money on your electricity bill using power factor correction, here is one for sale by my old friends at HHOTec.

Power factor, reactive power, is something I really struggled to understand at Uni, it involves some pretty full-on maths, but I did get my head around it and do understand what it is. Power factor correction is a real thing and something electricity supply utility companies and big industry have to worry about.

Some large industrial machines and certain types of electricity production produce a large amount of reactive power, this needs to be compensated for using power factor correction. Big produces of reactive power will be charged for making it and big consumers of reactive power are often compensated for it.

The key word here is big. Residential customers are neither big producers or consumers of reactive power and they are not charged for it, it is not even measured. Even if these power factor correction devices work (and I’m not saying they don’t) it will not make any difference to your residential utility bill.

Anyone claiming to noticeably reduce your residential electricity bill using power factor correction is selling you a lie because reactive power is not metered in the home. Real power is measured in kW and kWh and this is what you get charged for, reactive power is measured in kVAr and is not measured in the home and so is not chargeable.

Just to be clear another term you may come across is apparent power, this is a combination of real power and reactive power added together.

The ever great Michael Bluejay agrees with me here:

These devices won’t save electricity in your home. Don’t waste your money on them. They do correct your power factor, but utilities don’t charge home users for bad power factor. You weren’t paying a penalty before installing the unit, so you won’t see any savings after you put it in.

And a great article on nlcpr.com, “Power Factor Correction Scam Review”

Power Factor Correction (for residential customers) is a scam. Whole house systems save zero. Units mounted near devices like clothing washers might save 4 tenths of a cent per year. At most, each unit is worth 4 cents as an investment.

The KVAR Power Factor Optimizer from Save Energy LLC is a typical example of this scam. Others to look out for are KVAR Energy Saving Systems, KVAR Energy Contoller KEC PU1200, Nevvus Powerguard, Power-Save 1200, Power Saver HOME, Kilowatt Nanny, PowerwoRx-e3 and Power Saver Enersonic.