Electricity Power Savers : Do they work ?

Electricity Power Saver

Thats the question on everyone’s minds these days. The Indian market is flooded with various brands of electricity savers. Some claim to be made by IIT Graduates, others are Chinese imports. Anyway as someone asked me, do these power savers work , i am an engineering student and have done a successful course in power apparatus 😛 , therefore i can answer this question.

If you want to learn how to tamper your digital electricity meter provided by BSES or NDPL, this is not the place ! These devices have nothing to do with meter tampering.

Power Savers are what you call Synchronous condensers. Most motor loads in our house are Inductive loads, like pumps, fans, mixers etc. Even Air Conditioners and Refrigerators are inductive loads. The power factor of Inductive loads is lagging and synchronous condensers supply a reactive power factor and help nullify the effect.

So we see in theory synchronous condensers do save power, but how much depends on the kind of load you have. These condensers wont work with resistive loads such as heaters, geysers, irons, bulbs etc. So if you live in a cold place, don’t expect lots of savings.

Also important is the product you buy, many of the products might be cheap duplicates with LEDs and nothing else, so its better to test the power saver you have bought than assume its saving power. You can ask your electrician to test the power using a wattmeter before and after switching on your power saver device.

Also if you find that the saver is not saving you enough power, don’t be hesitant to invoke the money back guarantee clauses and return the power saver.

Disclaimer : All advice above is on a as-is basis and we don’t offer any sort of guarantee on our advice, use your brain before making a purchase.

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