How to Spot & Avoid Power Saving Scams

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Informative article. Most of it really should really be common sense but unfortunately common sense is not very common Also lots of people are desperate to save money & the environment(stop climate change & such) these days & these scams feed on desperation. Some of those scams would actually cost you more power instead of saving any. Having more things between your power meter & your various electrical devices is going to reduce the power going to your electrical devices which means you will need to have more power coming into your home in order to power your electrical devices at the same rate. Also having more devices plugged in at your home means that power will be going to more devices. Those devices also make the environment worse because those devices are made with materials like metals & plastics & a lot of those devices will get tossed in the trash instead of being recycled 1ce the buyers realize they are garbage.

While power-factor correction (PFC) is real, it is most useful when applied to high-power industrial-grade AC induction motors that run 24/7.  Most of the time, however, placing a few "squirrel-cage" AC synchronous motors in parallel with the induction motors will correct the power factor to within a few percentage points.

Placing a PFC device on your home refrigerator, freezer, or furnace motor might make you feel good about "going green", but the intermittent use of these low-power appliances (their motors do not run 24/7) will not provide a noticeable return on your investment.  Even if they did run 24/7, the economic advantage gained through a PFC would be overwhelmingly swamped out by the raw current draw of lights, televisions, computers, and other non-inductive appliances.