Voltage harmoniser ????

stevemcol

kwikbreaks wrote: »

If there really were savings in energy consumption to be made every government struggling to meet their carbon output promises (ie all that have signed up to any) would be insisting their national grid voltages be reduced. I haven't seen any announcements along these lines.

I imagine if the voltage was cut uniformly across the grid, some remote consumers would not receive the minimum contractual voltage.
Remember the voltage has been cut in recent years, on paper if not in reality, from 240 to 230.

System

Fifer wrote: »

If so, that's the snake oil.

And that was my point. Why buy/lease equipment that probably needs an ongoing servicing contract when the same can be achieved for a lot less by changing all the bulbs.

I wonder if the companies that have had this kit fitted are seeing a rise in fluorescent light starter or tube failures as they tend to get voltage sensitive as they age and will start failing to strike a lot earlier at 220V than at 230-240V

Fifer

stevemcol wrote: »

Hammyman

Why do you have a problem with the possibility that industry optimises electrical and electronic equipment around a value of 220V a.c.
I must confess I haven't done much research but I probably will now. It is a reasonable concept though and your posts replying to Espresso are bordering on abusive.
I agree a manufacturer will tap a secondary transformer coil to supply optimal low volatage but a decision has to be taken at the design stage as to what that tapping will be. I could imagine 220v to be a reasonable working assumption. It is then entirely possible that the device would not run at max efficiency if it was supplied with 240v. If you were a designer, would you care if your clock radio burned an extra 800mA at 240V compared to 220V? Very plausible.

I think we are in great danger of going down a blind alley for a couple of reasons here:

1. Appliances which cope with 100-20vac supplies generally use auto-switching circuits to switch between two primary transformer windings.

2. Most electronics appliance require low voltage DC supplies which use voltage regulators which regulate a (generally, but not always) higher dc voltage. Most designs for appliances consuming more than a few hundred of milliwatts use switching regulators, which are not less efficient when presented with higher input voltages. Voltage optimisation is of little or no consequence.

stevemcol

A very balanced view on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage_optimisation

Perhaps better suited to installations using lots of motors.

chrisw

stevemcol wrote: »

A very balanced view on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage_optimisation

Perhaps better suited to installations using lots of motors.

Not that balanced - Wikipedia flags up a caution that it may be an advertisement and the talk page suggests that some of the references may be company employees.

Some of the wording seems very similar to some of that quoted on this site - are they separately arrived at views, or do they all stem originally from the same (unreliable) source?

stevemcol

chrisw wrote: »

Not that balanced - Wikipedia flags up a caution that it may be an advertisement and the talk page suggests that some of the references may be company employees.

Some of the wording seems very similar to some of that quoted on this site - are they separately arrived at views, or do they all stem originally from the same (unreliable) source?

Possibly.
I'm no advocate; I don't know enough about it. I'd like to see an independent study.

I am prepared to believe that a low loss voltage reduction device could enable older equipment to run more efficiently.

The 'possible advert' warning is fairly common on wiki (though that may be because there are lots of possible adverts ).

Hammyman

chrisw wrote: »

Not that balanced - Wikipedia flags up a caution that it may be an advertisement and the talk page suggests that some of the references may be company employees.

Some of the wording seems very similar to some of that quoted on this site - are they separately arrived at views, or do they all stem originally from the same (unreliable) source?

If you knew anything about 3 phase motors, you'd realise that this is where it is advantageous to have all three phases as near to identical voltage as possible as a minor discrepancy in one can result in a large overall reduction in efficiency.

chrisw

Hammyman wrote: »

If you knew anything about 3 phase motors, you'd realise that this is where it is advantageous to have all three phases as near to identical voltage as possible as a minor discrepancy in one can result in a large overall reduction in efficiency.

I know absolutely nothing whatsoever about 3 phase motors or indeed most of this thread, which is why I looked at the Wikipedia link to see what it was all about.:huh:

Markee

Perhaps all this cynicism is the reason power optimisation vendors offer guaranteed savings.....

kwikbreaks

Would it be cynical to ask how you or they could prove there were any savings? I don't know about you but my own electricity consumption isn't constant enough to tell if I've saved 15% or wasted it.