Electroflow

[Run1on]

Has anybody had any experience with a product called ElectroFlow?

A client of mine has been approached by a distributor who claims his equipment can decrease kw consumption by up to 34% and do a host of other power conditioning items. I find it VERY hard to believe any one piece of equipment can do all this It would take a lot of intensive analysis and equipment to achieve 10%.

Comments are appreciated

Run1on

 

[peterb]

The product appears to be a power conditioner which incorporates features such as power factor correction. In fairness to the manufacturer, their website doesn't make any claim to a 34% reduction in kW consumption.

Ask the question of the distributor - do you have certified test results from a reputable, independent testing organization that support your claim?

 

[stevenal]

"GUARANTEED electric savings of up to 34%"

Sound like you are guaranteed at least a 0% savings.

 

[busbar]

Sounds like the Nola/NASA device is going through another cycle. {Run!}

 

[electrageek]

I have been involved in the installation of a couple of the Electroflow products. Our involvement was a number of years ago and I haven't heard the name Electroflow in quite a long time. I thought maybe they had gone out of business. We assisted in the installation an Electroflow cabinet for a customer who primarily wanted to "free up KVA" but was also promised energy saving based on a survey done at the plant.

The unit is installed on the 480 volt side of a service transformer. It is connected phase to phase in the same way you would connect power factor correction capacitors. The 480 volt 3 phase Electroflow system consisted of 6 drawers in a vertical enclosure. Each drawer included a set of fuses, a contactor, a set of capacitors, and a set of inductors. The inductor and capacitor values changed in each drawer. A relatively simple control board monitored the power factor and then energized the contactors in the drawer one at a time to add or remove capacitance and therefore improve power factor as needed. This part worked fairly well. The second claim was that the unit would the save energy wasted in three phase induction motors caused by voltage imbalance. The induction / capacitor networks would allow equalizing currents to flow and keep the voltages balanced. We were asked to test the system to prove to the customer that it was indeed saving the energy promised. This is the difficult part. To see any energy savings you would expect to run without the Electroflow for a period of time and record KWhr used then run for an equal period of time with the Electroflow and measure the savings. If their were any saving there we could never find them. We did call and talk to apparently happy energy saving customers, but we could never see anything other than Kvar production.
If something is too good to be true then it probably is.

 

[electricuwe]

I justed visited their website:

http://www.electroflow.ca/what_is.html

Since they claim to use LRC cicuits its even more suspicious to get these savings.

I guess they are only fooling the people which do not know the difference between fundamental power factor and true power factor.

 

[jbartos]

Suggestion. Large savings can be obtained in areas of small and inefficient loads, e.g. small nonlinear loads, etc. However, LCR alone, without some active power conditioning, etc. can hardly safe so much of power consumption or cost. However, the manufacturer may just mention the major passive components.

 

[eewd]

Salesman told us me that they divert transients from one phase to another. Thus the energy of the transient is used to power the load and you are not buying the energy from the utility. How many transients would one have to process to save one KWH? You have a serious transient problem if you can save KWH by this method.
He also told us that we would save money even if we were not billed or penalized for power factor.
If you have the need for a premium power factor correction and/or the other benefits of an RLC system, then it probably works. Justification based on proposed energy savings only is not sound engineering.