Please don’t spam my site. Your link happens to be to a company that just happens to sell this product. I have changed that.

Nobody mentions Envi because it has only been for sale in the US for a few months now, and it’s not that great a product. I put a small review of it on the other spam comment you posted, in short, it’s a pretty weak product compared to other options out there.

Monitor in hand, a wattsup smart circuit 20 in our case, and the energy audit complete we were ready to take action. We made the “no investment” changes first, turning lights off, turning appliances off, power settings for the laptop, fridge settings, acceptable compromise in apartment temperature, and did not fall for vampire power scams but made sure we did not have any offenders.

Lighting was next, first the obvious CFL replacements, and more recently a 100% replacement thanks to an on-line supplier of reasonable candelabra, dimmer, and A19 bulbs. We have a graph of the before and after energy profiles and a real incandescent vs. CFL analysis – 2 days of the old – 2 days of the new. Our outcome, a 75% lighting saving on electricity.

But then came the issues, what about the increased energy cost of CFL manufacture, what about the mercury, what about the 55% CFL power factor, and finally what about our apartments overall power factor. I happen to know quite a lot about power factor, so it did not take me long to establish that our fridge circuit was at 91%, our appliance circuit 91%, our furnace fan in regular operation 80%, and our lighting circuit had dropped from 100% with or the incandescent bulbs to 75% with the CFL’s

I was pleased it was 75%, and not the 55% as one web site claimed, quality bulbs do have quality electronics.

Readers please take note, ALL of the issues I have raised above are NOT of significant concerns. But all are them are being trumped up to promote some untoward purpose in the disinformation.

The mercury in a CFL is less than the amount which covers a pencil tip, the recycling facilities are all in place, with a 10x greater life and a 75% energy reduction CFL light bulbs are a sound energy saving strategy. The real issues are the time they take in certain use cases, like a bathroom, to reach full intensity. It may not always be OK.

The bigger issue is power factor. Besides being used by the incandescent advocates to scare us away from CFL’s, for as I demonstrated above they do have a lower power factor, it is being used to market power factor correction technologies.

From scam gadgets you plug in, to sophisticated home automation systems which do correct power factor, but have no purpose in domestic consumer use.

In summary, when the power factor is less than 100% it means that there is a phase shift between voltage and current. Consumer tariffs are based on Real Power, only the electricity actually consumed by a device. The consumer electrical tariffs include provision for the power factor losses which this “out of phase” might cause the electricity supplier.

It is true that electricity suppliers need to manage their distribution networks, and that power factor IS one of the factors that impacts their distribution losses. It is also true that large industrial users are charged a penalty for a net power factor of less than 85%. But distribution losses will not be solved by consumers. They are aggregate issues that can only be solved by the utility companies (the smart grid) in partnership with industry and device manufacturers.

Power factor and power factor correction are indeed subjects that we should be aware of, but it is fraud when marketed to home owners as a way to save money on their electricity bill.

Here are two articles I encourage all consumers to be familiar with, and please let others know so that none of us are duped out of our hard earned cash.

A list of products wrongly claiming to save electricity through power factor correction, plus a couple of other scams – Energy Saving Scams

A detailed explanation of power factor correction and why it does NOT impact a consumers electricity bill, or reduce the effectiveness of CFL energy savings – Power factor Correction – Scam Review – a note of thanks to David Stonier-Gibson of SPLat Controls, who gave us permission to publish his article on power factor !

I have no idea how I came up with that $45/year number — I must have checked it twice incorrectly, because when our electrical rate was a little higher, I recall thinking a rule of thumb was that each 100 W, always on, cost about $200/year.

If I recall correctly, the average electrical rate in the country is about $0.10/kWh, about half what we pay here in New England, so a general rule of thumb for the country might be close to $100 for every 100W.

Sorry for giving you a dumb answer to a smart question last time!

Thanks again –

Tom

When I use your numbers I get $168.192

0.100 kW * 365 days * 24 hours * $0.192= 168.192

I’m I doing something wrong? The equation looks correct.

The annual cost depends on your electricity rate and the amount of power your fridge uses. If the fridge is 15 years old, it probably uses 2x to 3x as much as a comparable 8 year old model, which uses at least 2x as much as a current model.

EnergyStar is hard at work – all of these (incredible) reductions are a result of a government run, voluntary program. Pretty cool, eh?

I’m getting $168. I’m I missing something?