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V-Phase units...

Former Community Member over 13 years ago

I am an electrician, and have just stumbled onto the V phase website: http://www.vphase.co.uk/how-it...-technology-explained

I like the look of these, and if they stand up to their claims I will promote them to my domestic and commercial clients who often complain about their electricity bills.

However, after making some enquiries I am hearing conflicting opinions on whether or not these will in fact save money.

The website claims they save up to 17% on fridges, freezers and other motorized equipment and 3-5% on PC's.

Some people have said that they are an outright rip-off -that motors will just run longer and slower in fridge/freezers-whilst others have said fridge freezers will just run less efficiently i.e cooler, and some have said that the theory is sound they're waiting to see how well they perform in the field and for consumer confidence to increase.

I'm posting to see what the people here think of the concept, whether or not you think it will work and whether anyone has any experience they would like to share with them?

All replies/opinions welcomed...

0 David Ruck over 5 years ago

For uncontrolled resistive loads such as incandescent lights, reducing the voltage will reduce power consumption. But such uses are now very rare in homes, energy saving lighting and just about all electronic equipment use regulated power supplies, and will just draw more current, not saving any power.

There is also a small risk that if you have a heavily loaded ring main (or more likely a long chain of 4 way adaptors), the extra current draw could cause the wires to overheat or breakers to trip.
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0 Former Community Member over 5 years ago

There may be some specialised industrial uses where these may save money, but I am a loss to see the benefit in any reasonably modern building in the UK.

Any load that incorporates some kind of automatic control is not going to benefit.

Consider a common room heater.

Superficially, if the Voltage is turned down the power used by the resistive element is going to be less. However, if the room warms up more slowly it is going to take longer till the thermostat clicks off. The power used is the same! This also applies to kettles, irons, ovens and so on.

More complex loads use switching power supplies.

These are true power converters that react to having the supply Voltage is turned down by increasing the input current. A change, up or down, will result in the same power being used.

This includes CFL and LED lamps, PCs, TVs, phone chargers and inverter driven air conditioners.

Spending the money on common energy improvements will get better return on the investment.
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0 Alasdair Anderson over 5 years ago

Andrew White:

Superficially, if the Voltage is turned down the power used by the resistive element is going to be less. However, if the room warms up more slowly it is going to take longer till the thermostat clicks off. The power used is the same! This also applies to kettles, irons, ovens and so on.

I don't agree that in all cases with the voltage turned down the power is the same. For a kettle it takes longer to heat up, so there is more heat loss from the kettle as it comes to the boil and thus the power used is higher. With an iron or an oven, the heat is controlled by the thermostat in the device so the same amount of power is demanded, but with lower voltage the current is higher and there are more losses in the cables, so again the power usage is higher (though possibly not noticeable).

I definitely agree that spending the money on common energy improvements will get a better return on investment.

Alasdair
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0 Former Community Member over 5 years ago

Hi,

I agree completely, i was simplifying.
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0 Stuart Urban over 5 years ago

If this is voltage optimisation then I looked into this about five years ago for a client and was unable to find any evidence that they were useful for saving energy.
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