Alternative Power sources - do they make green plugs anymore?

Author

do they make green plugs anymore?

Christie

2008-03-15, 9:25 pm

I remember in the late 90s we used a green plug on our refrigerator to save
on energy costs. Do they make the plugs anymore? I can't find them online
anywhere.

Anthony Matonak

2008-03-16, 3:25 am

Christie wrote:
> I remember in the late 90s we used a green plug on our refrigerator to save
> on energy costs. Do they make the plugs anymore? I can't find them online
> anywhere.

I believe they don't sell them because they don't work.

http://www.sandiego.gov/development...wnr/green.shtml

The same can be said for any number of products hawked on infomercials
and then later taken off the market when the companies were sued by
angry consumers when the products don't work as claimed.

Anthony

BobG

2008-03-16, 1:26 pm

I thought those green plugs were just power factor correctors in a
box, and nowdays, anything reactive has a PFC power supply in it?

somebody@somewhere.com

2008-03-16, 1:26 pm

On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:36:54 -0700, Anthony Matonak
<anthonym40@nothing.like.socal.rr.com> wrote:

>Christie wrote:
>
>I believe they don't sell them because they don't work.
>
>http://www.sandiego.gov/development...wnr/green.shtml
>
>The same can be said for any number of products hawked on infomercials
>and then later taken off the market when the companies were sued by
>angry consumers when the products don't work as claimed.
>
>Anthony

I ran across one of those things once in back of a refrigerator. I
was amazed how hot it was, and got to thinking that it had to be
wasting more energy than it could possibly save.

Gordon

2008-03-16, 9:25 pm

BobG <bobgardner@aol.com> wrote in news:137bfbd2-f198-4afa-ab62-
c0565f833b67@n75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

> I thought those green plugs were just power factor correctors in a
> box, and nowdays, anything reactive has a PFC power supply in it?

Not really. Motors are reactive and don't come with PFC standard.
But most electronics now come equipt with Switch mode power
supply. These are easy to PFC.

PFC dosn't work with refrigerators. They work well with motors
that are running lightly loaded or have a varyable load. A
'fridge or AC has a motor that is closely matched to it's load.
So PFC doesn't do any good.

Neon John

2008-03-17, 1:25 pm

On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 08:06:57 -0700 (PDT), BobG <bobgardner@aol.com> wrote:

>I thought those green plugs were just power factor correctors in a
>box, and nowdays, anything reactive has a PFC power supply in it?

What the Green plug did - in theory - was to reduce the voltage going to the motor
until the motor became fully loaded. A motor's power factor rises with increasing
load so an indication that the motor is fully loaded is a high PF. The concept works
if done correctly and in the NASA design that the GP copied, the electronics were
tailored to the particular motor. It didn't work so well when genericized.

In practice, what the thing did was let the blue smoke leak out. I did a quite
extensive review of the GP when it first came out and posted the report to a
newsgroup, sci.energy, I think. In the process I sacrificed a perfectly good
refrigerator.

The problem that the GP claims to address - underloaded motors - is mostly a myth in
major appliances made in the last few decades. It is to the manufacturer's benefit
to optimize the motor design for the least possible copper and iron and that's what
they do. A byproduct of this is that the motor is allowed to run as hot as the state
of the insulation art will allow. All the GP did was slow the motor slightly and
caused the motor to heat more. Heat-related insulation failure is what took out the
motor in my refrigerator.

Unfortunately, there still ain't no energy free lunch!

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com <-- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Democracy is three wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.

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