I’m sure a lot of you have seen this on HSN or in the malls — that wattage-zapping device which claims could lower your electricity bill by as much as 30%. I got curious so we tried it out several months ago.
The theory behind the device is that it normalizes the current running thru the house (hundreds of meters of copper wiring running thru the walls) and thus reducing the power consumed thereby lowering the electric bill. I’m no electrical engineer so I can really explain it very well so an actual test should be in order.
The device, named Power Saver Max, is plugged into a wall socket and does all the trick. And it costs a whooping Php3,500 a pop. It used to be Php7,000 several years ago when it first became public.
Of course, there are various other factors that might affect the fluctuations in power consumption around the house but by taking monthly samples, we may be able to see some sort of a trend.
For the last 9 months, our Meralco bill has been pretty consistent with power usage in the vicinity of 750 kilo-watt hours. Then in October, we tried that wattage-zapping device. The sales guy guaranteed that if we don’t get lower bill in 3 to 6 months, we can return it and get my money back.
The October usage went down but the following month, it went back up again only to go down in December. Those drops accounted for just 11% and 16% reduction on the bills. I’m not yet convinced so I’m giving it another 2 months.
Anybody else had this one at home? Did you notice any changes in your electricity bills?
FOR TED >>>>>> it doesn’t work during holidays and weekends because there is no work during these days
I saw it on 20% discount sale this morning at Handyman. Does it really work? Any updates? Thanks.
my father bought one at handyman about 3 months ago. i plugged it immediately and after 2 months i noticed a little decrease in our consumption. but just last night, the gadget overheated. i just dont know what happened but the plug was completely burnt.
i just bought mine couple of hours ago and i bought it on sale at 1,900 per unit plus a 10% discount. I decided to have 2 units for the actual size of our structure. It seems that the way these capacitors & resistors work is to reroute unusable “leak” electricity into usable, much stable electric current that would generate electric power for various appliances. Therefore, practically speaking, the 20-35% power savings we’re talking here is actually the electric losses naturally occuring through copper wires, hysteresis (electric motors) and other forms of ripple. And perhaps the most effective way of utilizing this device is to have it closest to your main switch as it would greatly bypass incoming electricity to other electric outlets.
I will be using these units starting tomorrow and observe the effects on my bills for the next few months. Any significant kW/H drops on my electric consumption, i’ll let you guys know.
I’m using a different brand of power saver for almost 4 months now in my house. And my average cost of electricity was P2,500/mo. Now, my february electric bills dropped to P1,300. Also, we used a higher capacity power saver in our gas station. The Ave. monthly bill was P24,000 but last Feb. our bill dropped to P20,000.
I think if these power savers don’t give any savings to consumers, maybe they don’t need to market them in the first place.
Also, it’s better to judge them(power savers) if you yourself used it.
we’ve been using this device for 2years now, there’s a significant decrease in kw/hr. We bought ours for 9k, that was 2 years ago.
if you can backtrack previous years consumption much better for comparison since each month we have different consumption (higher consumption during summer etc). better compare per month this yr vs last year.
I bought that a couple of months ago and it seems that it didn’t really brought my electric bill down.
Halos ganun pa din.
If you open the device, it is actually a capacitor and some electronics to do the “knight rider” led driver.
@liz – sor far, there’s been some significant reduction in power usage. I still need a couple more months to see the trend.
hi!
does it work?
i think since october… two months are up now… =)
please advise. thank you!
@jpeb
I think buying 2 or more really is sales talk, since the demonstrator I talked to advised against more than 1 unit
Of course, many things about the device really is questionable at this point…
i haven’t used one of these ‘power savers’ but the first thing that came to mind was the device was mainly a capacitor. sylv3rblade mentioned that it’s basically adding capacitance, and i think he’s correct.
in general, capacitance is added to the system to counteract the effect of inductive devices, i.e. refrigerators, air conditioners, large motors, transformers. by convention, a capacitor supplies ‘positive’ reactive power that would otherwise be supplied by the system (through Meralco). this supply of ‘positive’ reactive power generally lowers the current magnitude since it brings the power factor from negative to unity (1.00 pf).
if it’s truly a capacitor, precaution needs to be taken here – add too many of these ‘power savers’ and you risk having an overvoltage inside your house if you unplug/turn off your ref, aircon, etc. that is, if the ‘power saver’ does not have sensing of the power factor and doesn’t turn itself off automatically in the event of an oversupply. an oversupply of reactive power will bring the power factor to positive, and that will generally raise the voltage at your end.
in my opinion, it won’t matter where you plug the ‘power saver’ so long as you plug it after the electric meter.
also, Meralco’s residential billing structure and metering does not meter your consumption of reactive power (kVar) and reactive energy (kVarh). in commercial and industrial billing structures, kVar and kVarh is metered, and they are penalized if their power factor is below -0.80 or above ~1.00 and given a discount if it is in the region of -0.95 and 1.00.
however, i advice you to go ahead with testing, maybe there’s something else there that we don’t know of that would truly lower your consumption. like i’ve said, i haven’t used this device yet, and if it does what it promises to do, then i’m all for it :)
So what if it normalizes the current? Does it mean your appliances would consume less energy? Many products go on the market today didn’t got tested by regulatory bodies. That is why the consumers really have to dodge a bullet when it comes to buying untested products.
Those are actually good results, considering you [I’m assuming here] have Christmas lights up during the Christmas season. Yeah, I suggest further trial and testing. Keep us posted. :)
The theory of the device is sound actually, it’s basic electronics.
Add enough capacitance (much like a potentiometer for resistance) so that the power factor of your house’s circuitry reaches unity (IE. exactly 1.00) and you’ll get power savings.
Thing is, the capacitance that needs to be added depends on the current actual usage of the circuitry, in which case if you add/subtract a device, the power factor goes out of unity and the device either works poorly or fails.
the salesman at the mall said that you need to plug the device closest to the appliance that uses the most power and is always on. i guess that means the refrigerator.
i don’t know if this is just sales talk but he also suggested to get at least two of these for homes that consume about 650 to 1000kwh.
oopss sorry my mistake…below 100kwh not 1000kwh :-)
@koolitz, 300kWh costs Php3,000, not Php300.
for me, this is good only if your power consumption reaches 1000kw and above…kasi if you save up to 30%…that is only 300kw..and the cost per kw cguro sarado na natin 10pesos….so 300 pesos per month ma save mo…. in short mga almost 1 year mo pa mababawi ang investment mo na 3,500 assuming di sya masira after a year :-)
pero kung nasa below 1000kw usage ka lang per month para sa akin di sya okay
oh great it may guide to many users of electricity because you had already use of it.
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