Voltage Vs Current Peaks

What about the placebo effect?

I install one of these devices.........with my new found electrical awareness, I run around for a month turning off lights and every other device that I'm not using........badda bing badda boom......I just dropped my power bill by 15%. Magic!

Same with the fuel line magnets.......get one, and the next thing you know, you're driving the speed limit, rolling up to lights instead of slamming on brakes......next thing you know, you're getting 4-5 miles more out of a gallon......Bingo!!!!!

So.........if these things change behavior to produce the desired effect, are they still a rip off?

_{Crawls back into alien spacecraft and leaves quickly.}

"What about the placebo effect"

How the hell are you going to swallow it?

As far as I know about "Energy Wizard" or whatever an energy saver device is called, inside a box is just an LED and a capacitor for reactive power. the V and I peaks are offset when there is a difference between the reactive power produced and consumed.

Usually home users are not charged for the reactive power so it does not matter whether the power factor is 0.9 or 0.7. In this case the utility company deals with it.

Large industrial consumers on the other hand are charged for the reactive power consumed.

It is true that having low power factor the consumer draws a bit larger current but the active power consumed does not change significantly.

Like many scams, there is a kernel of truth here that has been warped to make a sale. The effect of the time change between voltage and current peaks is called the power factor. (I won't go into the details how one calculates the power factor. If you want to, Wikipedia does have a good explanation that will walk you through the calculation.) Most of the electric loads in your home do not produce a current lag that makes this inefficient drawing of current. AC motors can produce a significant current lag but only under certain conditions.

The easiest to understand and test example of the power factor effect comes from seeing what happens with a drill press. Lets think about drilling into something very durable, like steel. When the motor is first turned ON the drill bit is spinning but not in contact with the steel. In this unloaded condition the power factor is very poor but the current is still close to the rated current of the motor. With the exception of the heat produced by the motor windings, the air being blown to keep the motor cool and the bearing frictions happening very little real work is happening. Once the drill bit starts to cut steel more real work happens, the power factor improves but the actual current magnitude does not significantly increase. As you lean harder into the steel, the drill bit tries to do more work and the power factor improves even more but only to the limit of work that the motor can provide. (You also have other problems in the quality of the cut but that's not the topic here.)

Now why is this device a scam for a homeowner? You will only have a poor power factor problem if the motors in your house are ON and not doing any work. Your refrigerator, air conditioner, washing machine, etc. all have motors that are attached to their loads so anytime these motors are used they do not have a poor power factor. Even if you have a workshop in your house the tools poor power factor condition will only happen while your tool is ON but not doing a job. Most people don't leave these tools ON unless they are moments away from doing some work.

I'll summarize...

1. The effect they drone on about (without mentioning by name for some reason) is called "power factor" (pf). Well known, nothing new, part of the phenomenon we call "electrical distribution and use". No big deal, it's not the world-changing energy-wasting condition they make it out to be.
2. Poor pf does cause a small amount of energy to be wasted. But not at YOUR end of the wire. It causes the power utility to have to deliver MORE power to you than they can bill you for. The losses are in the power transmission and distribution system such as wires, transformers etc. that need to be bigger in order to deliver the extra current that is represented by that time lag, the "reactive current". So for large industrial customers, they install expensive metering systems that measure the effects of poor pf, called kVARs (kilo Volt-Amperes Reactive), and bill them a surcharge based on the extra demands their poor pf put onto the grid. But there is little measurable effect of the poor pf on the net efficiency of the offending loads themselves.
3. Residential consumers represent a small percentage of the actual load on a distribution grid system. The cost of installing and reading the kVAR demand metering systems necessary to recoup some of the transmission losses far exceeds the return on investment. In other words, it's cheaper for the power utility to ignore the effects of poor pf in residential applications than it is to try to bill for it.
4. Doing ANYTHING to improve the pf of a residential service, such as magic boxes like this, is not going to affect your energy bill in any significant way. Technically, you will be helping out the power company in some infinitesimally small way and they will see some benefit if they have a powerful enough economic microscope to find it, but they will not even bother to thank you, let alone reduce your bill.
5. Another thing they fail to mention is that the only way to truly affect the power factor of a device (motor) that is causing it to be poor, is to add VARs at the load itself. But the devices they sell are added to the service entrance. In order to avoid some very damaging effects of OVER CORRECTING, i.e. adding too many VARS, they are forced to use very small capacitors. In other words they provide only just enough capacitance to legally say it is there, but the amount is insignificant even if it were to be helpful to the utility.
   
6. So in conclusion, as mentioned above, the only REAL purpose of these devices is to separate the ignorant from their hard earned money. Mind you, I'm not meaning "ignorant" in a demeaning way. It just means that most people are untrained and therefore innocently unaware of the way it all works and these charlatans are taking advantage of that fact.