17-08-2014, 05:03 AM
Some years ago (2005/6) we rebuilt our house as close to carbon-neutral as we could.
As part of that exercise, I monitored the power usage on every device in the house, including power factor.
All the appliances were new then, so are as efficient as they could be at the time (very well insulated fridges, low energy washing machine/dishwasher, ground-source heat pump etc.). Modern PCs have to have PFC PSUs as part of the Energy Star scheme... The heat pump, which uses about 50% of all our electricity, also has internal PFC (its 3-phase as well).
Almost everything, had a power factor very very close to of 0.9 or better, except the low-energy lighting that we were required to have as a part of the latest building regs and our planning constraints - these lights are very few and limited to rarely used locations.
So overall, in a house with reasonably modern white goods and other electrical items, there is absolutely no point in trying to further correct the PFC - just switch stuff off when its not being used - e.g. leaving a PC on all year without standby costs about 60 quid.
If you have items with very poor PFC which are major consumers of electricity, then the items probably are also very old and inefficient and you'd be better off just replacing them... e.g. old fridges & freezers which aren't well insulated, washing machines that can't do low-energy washes, immersion heaters etc.
However much it may grate, keeping some old stuff going because you can is sometimes not a very good idea... just switching things off when not in use (if they don't have an ultra-low-power standby mode) is by far the simplest thing to do.
As part of that exercise, I monitored the power usage on every device in the house, including power factor.
All the appliances were new then, so are as efficient as they could be at the time (very well insulated fridges, low energy washing machine/dishwasher, ground-source heat pump etc.). Modern PCs have to have PFC PSUs as part of the Energy Star scheme... The heat pump, which uses about 50% of all our electricity, also has internal PFC (its 3-phase as well).
Almost everything, had a power factor very very close to of 0.9 or better, except the low-energy lighting that we were required to have as a part of the latest building regs and our planning constraints - these lights are very few and limited to rarely used locations.
So overall, in a house with reasonably modern white goods and other electrical items, there is absolutely no point in trying to further correct the PFC - just switch stuff off when its not being used - e.g. leaving a PC on all year without standby costs about 60 quid.
If you have items with very poor PFC which are major consumers of electricity, then the items probably are also very old and inefficient and you'd be better off just replacing them... e.g. old fridges & freezers which aren't well insulated, washing machines that can't do low-energy washes, immersion heaters etc.
However much it may grate, keeping some old stuff going because you can is sometimes not a very good idea... just switching things off when not in use (if they don't have an ultra-low-power standby mode) is by far the simplest thing to do.
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