• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Power Electronic Tips

Power Electronic News, Editorial, Video and Resources

  • Products
    • Power Supplies
    • AC-DC
    • DC-DC
    • MOSFETS
    • Power Management
    • Battery Management
    • RF Power
    • Resistors
    • Capacitors
    • Magnetics
    • Transformers
  • Applications
    • LED Lighting
    • Rack Mount
    • Wireless
  • EE Forums
    • EDABoard.com
    • Electro-Tech-Online.com
  • EE Learning Center
  • Video
    • EE Videos
    • TI Power Videos
    • Teardown Videos
  • Resources
    • Design Fast
    • eBooks / Tech Tips
    • FAQ
    • LEAP Awards
    • Podcasts
    • Webinars
    • White Papers

The energy efficiency scam

November 18, 2015 By Lee Teschler 1 Comment

by Leland Teschler, Executive Editor

Dan Carnovale sounds extremely pissed off. He says he has three gizmos on his work bench right now that are all marketed as devices that can be hooked onto power lines to save energy. And, he claims, “All of them are garbage.”

Carnovale manages the Eaton Corp. Power Systems Experience Center in Pittsburgh. Bogus energy efficiency claims are one of his pet peeves. He says he sees a lot of equipment sold on the premise of saving energy that simply doesn’t work. Worse, he’s convinced many of the people putting these devices on the market know full well that their equipment is worthless.

“One company I’m familiar with installed 50 of these things at about $4,000 a piece. By the time everything was installed, they’d spent about $1 million. But they didn’t save any energy,” he relates. Worse, the victims in situations like this one are often so embarrassed, he says, they typically bury the evidence rather than make a stink about being scammed.

Eaton’s PSEC produced a video depicting how a sales pitch for energy efficiency add-ins often goes: The video depicts a faux salesperson switching the add-on device into and out of ac lines powering an induction motor, which is typically spinning without driving any load. An ammeter is hooked into the motor circuit. With the energy gizmo in place, the meter reads out a current level half of that when the gizmo is not in the circuit. “That’s a 50% savings!” gushes the salesperson.

What’s not shown in the demo is that the kilowatts dissipated in the motor are the same in either case. The gizmo is actually a capacitor that adjusts the power factor phase relationship of the motor voltage and current. Induction motors running unloaded are close to a worst-case situation for power factor.

Indeed, one reason people frequently get bilked by false energy efficiency schemes is a lack of knowledge about the role power factor plays on ac lines. Any cost savings from power factor correction comes from avoiding a tacked-on fee from the utility, not from saving energy. So gizmos like the one described in Eaton’s video would only save money if the utility added a penalty to the bill for excessive power factor. Often, says Carnovale, the facilities buying these quack energy efficiency remedies aren’t even on a rate schedule that penalizes them for excessive power factor.

“One hospital approached us for an opinion because they were getting ready to spend a lot of money on capacitors. It turned out the main reason for doing so seemed to be the passion of the salesperson selling the devices. There was no money to be saved because the hospital didn’t pay any power factor penalty,” he says. “It is clear to me a lot of the people selling these things are so excited about selling them that they are blind to the fact that their product really doesn’t work.”

But the days of questionable energy efficiency devices may be numbered. The IEEE has formed a working group that is defining tests for determining the effectiveness of add-on energy efficiency gear. IEEE P1889 aims to provide instructions for measuring electrical quantities that reveal how retrofitted energy saving devices (ESD) actually perform. This standard will focus on monitoring the power absorbed or generated with and without the ESD connected. There will be detailed protocols describing step-by-step the testing circuits, the type and accuracy of needed instrumentation, and a special emphasis on sources of measurement errors.

The result could be less money wasted on phoney energy savers, but fewer humorous war stories in the energy efficiency trenches. “The marketing material for one of these things said the inventor was inspired by God. It is comical but also scary to see what these guys come up with,” remarks Carnovale

Filed Under: Featured

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. Video: Up close and personal with an energy efficiency scam - Power Electronic Tips says:
    July 8, 2016 at 9:25 am

    […] also wrote about the Center’s work on energy efficiency scams in our 2015 Energy Efficiency […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

CURRENT DIGITAL ISSUE

Featuring 15 articles, the 2022 5G Handbook looks at private networks, timing, connectivity, latency, mmWaves, test, and other topics.

More from the digital archive

DesignFast

Component Selection Made Simple.

Try it Today
design fast globle

Subscribe to our Newsletter

The Power Electronic eNewsletter delivers breaking electronic and power component news, resources, product innovations and more.

Subscribe today

EE TRAINING CENTER CLASSROOMS

EE Classrooms

RSS Current EDABoard.com discussions

  • Manifest in Git bitbucket
  • What's the deal with all these "MPPT" IC's with no current sense?
  • Photovoltaic MOSFET Drivers - Voltage Rating
  • Impedance requirement for SDRAM signals
  • A circuit that can adjust a resistance and probing a voltage node

RSS Current Electro-Tech-Online.com Discussions

  • How to quickly estimate lead acid battery capacity ?
  • IRS2453 the H circuit
  • Ampro 16mm Stylist projector woes.
  • Finally switched to Linux.
  • Multistage BJT amplifier

Footer

EE World Online Network

  • DesignFast
  • EE World Online
  • EDA Board Forums
  • Electro Tech Online Forums
  • Connector Tips
  • Microcontroller Tips
  • Analog IC Tips
  • Sensor Tips
  • Test and Measurement Tips
  • Wire and Cable Tips
  • 5G Technology World

Power Electronic Tips

  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Advertise with us
  • Contact us
  • About us
Follow us on TwitterAdd us on FacebookFollow us on YouTube Follow us on Instagram

Copyright © 2022 · WTWH Media LLC and its licensors. All rights reserved.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media.

Privacy Policy