Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

On Apr 9, 11:17*am, "HeyBub" wrote:
Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

The good point is I save the money running cfls.

On Apr 9, 12:17*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

that is pretty crappy, even old style fluorescent fixtures are
generally 0.8 or better.

Now I'm going to have to try that when I get home to satisfy my
curiosity.

nate

HeyBub wrote:

Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

The lousy power factor will show up in your bill if you are using them
in a business or industrial location where that factor is measured and
considered in computing your bill. You'll still come out ahead on cost
for the same number of lumens though.

And I've heard tell that utilities in some parts of the country are
beginning to meter power factor for residences too. I think it's where
there's significant use of air conditioning.

Maybe there's a market out there for some "bulb socket extenders" with
power factor correction capacitors inside them. G

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.


"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

On Apr 9, 3:32*pm, N8N wrote:
On Apr 9, 12:17*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

that is pretty crappy, even old style fluorescent fixtures are
generally 0.8 or better.

Now I'm going to have to try that when I get home to satisfy my
curiosity.

nate

One reservation we have about the use of CFLs is that since we heat
most homes here with electricity (hydro generated) anyway and never
need, in this climate AC, the so-called wasted heat from cheap (25
cent) incandescents (when on at night for example) is merely an
alternative to our electric heating!
One place that CFLs do make sense is outside, where they are sometimes
left on at night for safety and insurance reasons. But CFLs in very
cold climates do not seem to be always the best choice and ot you have
to buy expensive ones to get good starting and colour!
Also CFLs do not seem to be a good or necessary choice for locations
where they are flipped on for a short time, such as stairs, cupboards
etc. they supposed to be used (like strip fluorescents) where they
will be left on continuously.
We have a bunch of those, with electronic ballasts, (from a school
renovation) in our workshop.
Interesting finding; what about switching power supplies also?

stan wrote:
On Apr 9, 3:32 pm, N8N wrote:
On Apr 9, 12:17 pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

Twice as much.
"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.
"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "
http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html
that is pretty crappy, even old style fluorescent fixtures are
generally 0.8 or better.

Now I'm going to have to try that when I get home to satisfy my
curiosity.

nate

One reservation we have about the use of CFLs is that since we heat
most homes here with electricity (hydro generated) anyway and never
need, in this climate AC, the so-called wasted heat from cheap (25
cent) incandescents (when on at night for example) is merely an
alternative to our electric heating!
One place that CFLs do make sense is outside, where they are sometimes
left on at night for safety and insurance reasons. But CFLs in very
cold climates do not seem to be always the best choice and ot you have
to buy expensive ones to get good starting and colour!
Also CFLs do not seem to be a good or necessary choice for locations
where they are flipped on for a short time, such as stairs, cupboards
etc. they supposed to be used (like strip fluorescents) where they
will be left on continuously.
We have a bunch of those, with electronic ballasts, (from a school
renovation) in our workshop.
Interesting finding; what about switching power supplies also?

It is true that the old incandescent bulbs do provide heat, however,
like resistance heat, they are very inefficient. IIRC a good heat pump
will provide about four to six times as much heat as a resistance heater
or incandescent for the same power consumption.

EJ in NJ

Ernie Willson wrote:
....
It is true that the old incandescent bulbs do provide heat, however,
like resistance heat, they are very inefficient. IIRC a good heat pump
will provide about four to six times as much heat as a resistance heater
or incandescent for the same power consumption.
....
While I'm not going to say lighting is the ideal way to heat, and
there's truth to the heat pump, it achieves such efficiencies only when
source temperatures are relatively high whereas the resistance heater is
the same irregardless.

--

On Apr 9, 12:39*pm, ransley wrote:
On Apr 9, 11:17*am, "HeyBub" wrote:

Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

The good point is I save the money running cfls.

Is the reactive portion of the load capacitive or inductive?

Jimmie

dpb wrote:

While I'm not going to say lighting is the ideal way to heat, and
there's truth to the heat pump, it achieves such efficiencies only when
source temperatures are relatively high whereas the resistance heater is
the same irregardless.

Exactly. Furthermore, the argument for heat pumps ignores the initial cost of
installation as well as the operating environment. Unless you use a ground
source pump, which is significantly more expensive to install than an air source
pump, your heat pump only gets those great economics when the air temps are
above 40F or so.

But shame on you for bringing rational thought into what has turned into a
religious jihad.

HeyBub wrote:
Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that
is, the load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the
better. A load with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is
less efficient than a load with a high power factor for the same
amount of useful power. ... These power losses don't show up directly
on our electricity bill, but the utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter
recently and measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

Here's a Kill-A-Watt reading from a CFL bulb at my place:

Volts: 119.0
Hz: 59.9
Amps: 0.18
VA: 21
Watts: 10
PF: 0.49 (eek!)

On Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:16:37 -0400, Ernie Willson
wrote:



stan wrote:
On Apr 9, 3:32 pm, N8N wrote:
On Apr 9, 12:17 pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

Twice as much.
"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.
"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "
http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html
that is pretty crappy, even old style fluorescent fixtures are
generally 0.8 or better.

Now I'm going to have to try that when I get home to satisfy my
curiosity.

nate

One reservation we have about the use of CFLs is that since we heat
most homes here with electricity (hydro generated) anyway and never
need, in this climate AC, the so-called wasted heat from cheap (25
cent) incandescents (when on at night for example) is merely an
alternative to our electric heating!
One place that CFLs do make sense is outside, where they are sometimes
left on at night for safety and insurance reasons. But CFLs in very
cold climates do not seem to be always the best choice and ot you have
to buy expensive ones to get good starting and colour!
Also CFLs do not seem to be a good or necessary choice for locations
where they are flipped on for a short time, such as stairs, cupboards
etc. they supposed to be used (like strip fluorescents) where they
will be left on continuously.
We have a bunch of those, with electronic ballasts, (from a school
renovation) in our workshop.
Interesting finding; what about switching power supplies also?

It is true that the old incandescent bulbs do provide heat, however,
like resistance heat, they are very inefficient.

I think what you meant to say is that using electricty only** is a
very expensive way to make heat. That doesn't meant that incandescent
light bulbs are an inefficient way to provide heat. I believe that
they are 100% efficient, in that all the electric power that is used
is converted to heat and light, and the light is converted to heat
when it lands on a surface (except for the light that that gets out
through a window.)

Light is absorbed by a black surface and converted to heat at that
time. Light is partially reflected from a white surface, so part of
the energy is converted and part is reflected. You can tell that not
all of the light is reflected because if it were, when the light
source is turned off in an all white room, there would still be light
inside the room, when in fact it goes dark almost instantaneusly.

**As opposed to using electricity to power a heat pump or an oil
furnace.

IIRC a good heat pump
will provide about four to six times as much heat as a resistance heater
or incandescent for the same power consumption.

That's because the heat pump brings heat from the outside to the
inside, and the electricity just powers the process. An electric
powered coal stoker, that brought coal from a coal pile to a coal
furnace would generate even more heat per KWHour, although I don't
know that people would call a coal stoker an even more efficient means
of heating. Although maybe they would.

EJ in NJ

On Thu, 9 Apr 2009 11:17:23 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line.

You're quoting someone here and this seems wrong. Why would a load be
measured as a numerical fraction? A load should be in amps or watts
or joules or watt-hours, or whatever, I"m not sure what, but it has to
include some unit of measurement. A load is not a ratio. A power
factor is a ratio, a numeric value with no units (because the unit of
measurement of the numerator is the same unit of measurement of the
denominator.)

The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

I'm dubious. Clearly an accruate watt meter and tell how much power
is being used at a given moment, and can average those values or
otherwise calculate how much power is being used during any period of
time.

But where does the numerator in the fraction 0.57 come from. I
presume it's the amount of intended use that is coming from the
appliaces, also measure in watts (or watt-hours if the denominator
is.)

How does a Kill-o-watt meter find out how much light is coming from
from a CFL bulb? How does it learn such a value regarding anything
that uses electricity?

How could a Kill-o-watt meter measure efficiency since it doesn't know
how much work is being accomplished? It only knows how much power is
being used.

Plus she doesn't seem to have considered the possiblity that a
Killowatt meter that actually measures watts well might not be
designed to or able to measure the efficiency of a CFL.

For all these reasons, I wouldn't trust what she says about CFL's
using more power than "indicated".

(I haven't read any of the comments on the url yet.)

In article , HeyBub wrote:
Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

A load with power factor of even .5 does not draw twice as much power
from the generator as one of same wattage with power factor of 1. The
requirement to turn the generator is only slightly more.

The main concern of the power company is larger transformers and wires
to carry extra current.

- Don Klipstein )

In ,
JIMMIE wrote:

On Apr 9, 12:39*pm, ransley wrote:
On Apr 9, 11:17*am, "HeyBub" wrote:

Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that
is, the load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the
better. A load with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is
less efficient than a load with a high power factor for the same
amount of useful power. ... These power losses don't show up directly
on our electricity bill, but the utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently
and measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

The good point is I save the money running cfls.

Is the reactive portion of the load capacitive or inductive?

With the usual low power factor electronic-ballasted CFLs, most of the
"non-real" portion of the current is neither inductive nor capacitive, but
in the form of harmonics.

- Don Klipstein )

In , N8N
wrote:
On Apr 9, 12:17*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

that is pretty crappy, even old style fluorescent fixtures are
generally 0.8 or better.

Except for most USA ones 22 watts or less.

- Don Klipstein )

In , Ernie Willson wrote:

stan wrote:

One reservation we have about the use of CFLs is that since we heat
most homes here with electricity (hydro generated) anyway and never
need, in this climate AC, the so-called wasted heat from cheap (25
cent) incandescents (when on at night for example) is merely an
alternative to our electric heating!
One place that CFLs do make sense is outside, where they are sometimes
left on at night for safety and insurance reasons. But CFLs in very
cold climates do not seem to be always the best choice and ot you have
to buy expensive ones to get good starting and colour!
Also CFLs do not seem to be a good or necessary choice for locations
where they are flipped on for a short time, such as stairs, cupboards
etc. they supposed to be used (like strip fluorescents) where they
will be left on continuously.
We have a bunch of those, with electronic ballasts, (from a school
renovation) in our workshop.
Interesting finding; what about switching power supplies also?

It is true that the old incandescent bulbs do provide heat, however,
like resistance heat, they are very inefficient. IIRC a good heat pump
will provide about four to six times as much heat as a resistance heater
or incandescent for the same power consumption.

I thought it was 2-3 times as much.

- Don Klipstein )

Robert Neville wrote:
dpb wrote:

While I'm not going to say lighting is the ideal way to heat, and
there's truth to the heat pump, it achieves such efficiencies only
when source temperatures are relatively high whereas the resistance
heater is the same irregardless.

Exactly. Furthermore, the argument for heat pumps ignores the initial
cost of installation as well as the operating environment. Unless you
use a ground source pump, which is significantly more expensive to
install than an air source pump, your heat pump only gets those great
economics when the air temps are above 40F or so.

Which is probably 95% of the time here in Seattle.

Don Klipstein wrote:
In , Ernie Willson
wrote:

stan wrote:

One reservation we have about the use of CFLs is that since we heat
most homes here with electricity (hydro generated) anyway and never
need, in this climate AC, the so-called wasted heat from cheap (25
cent) incandescents (when on at night for example) is merely an
alternative to our electric heating!
One place that CFLs do make sense is outside, where they are
sometimes left on at night for safety and insurance reasons. But
CFLs in very cold climates do not seem to be always the best choice
and ot you have to buy expensive ones to get good starting and
colour!
Also CFLs do not seem to be a good or necessary choice for locations
where they are flipped on for a short time, such as stairs,
cupboards etc. they supposed to be used (like strip fluorescents)
where they will be left on continuously.
We have a bunch of those, with electronic ballasts, (from a school
renovation) in our workshop.
Interesting finding; what about switching power supplies also?

It is true that the old incandescent bulbs do provide heat, however,
like resistance heat, they are very inefficient. IIRC a good heat
pump will provide about four to six times as much heat as a
resistance heater or incandescent for the same power consumption.

I thought it was 2-3 times as much.

15 or 20 years ago that was the range IIRC.

Ernie Willson wrote:

It is true that the old incandescent bulbs do provide heat, however,
like resistance heat, they are very inefficient.

How is it inefficient if that heat is kept inside the
house?

mm wrote:
On Thu, 9 Apr 2009 11:17:23 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that
is, the load presented to the ac line.

You're quoting someone here and this seems wrong. Why would a load be
measured as a numerical fraction? A load should be in amps or watts
or joules or watt-hours, or whatever, I"m not sure what, but it has to
include some unit of measurement. A load is not a ratio. A power
factor is a ratio, a numeric value with no units (because the unit of
measurement of the numerator is the same unit of measurement of the
denominator.)

The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less
efficient than a load with a high power factor for the same amount
of useful power. ... These power losses don't show up directly on
our electricity bill, but the utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter
recently and measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

I'm dubious. Clearly an accruate watt meter and tell how much power
is being used at a given moment, and can average those values or
otherwise calculate how much power is being used during any period of
time.

But where does the numerator in the fraction 0.57 come from. I
presume it's the amount of intended use that is coming from the
appliaces, also measure in watts (or watt-hours if the denominator
is.)

How does a Kill-o-watt meter find out how much light is coming from
from a CFL bulb? How does it learn such a value regarding anything
that uses electricity?

How could a Kill-o-watt meter measure efficiency since it doesn't know
how much work is being accomplished? It only knows how much power is
being used.

It integrates the amp load and the voltage load. If the two are completely
out of phase, the PF is 0.



Plus she doesn't seem to have considered the possiblity that a
Killowatt meter that actually measures watts well might not be
designed to or able to measure the efficiency of a CFL.

For all these reasons, I wouldn't trust what she says about CFL's
using more power than "indicated".


Theoretically, you are correct. As a practical matter, however, that's not
how killowatt-hour meters work.

KWH meters assume a resistive load (PF=1). Anything less than a PF of 1
reduces the reading while a PF 1 (capacitance load) will cause the meter
to spin faster (rare). It's possible for a sufficiently large reactive load
to burn up bags and bags of energy while registering almost nothing on a
standard mechanical KWH meter.

On Apr 9, 7:36 pm, wrote:
Ernie Willson wrote:
It is true that the old incandescent bulbs do provide heat, however,
like resistance heat, they are very inefficient.

How is it inefficient if that heat is kept inside the
house?

You can look at an incandescent bulb as being something like 99%
efficient compared to an ideal resistive heater, meaning that 99% (and
I'm pulling that number out of the air) of the electricity that passes
through the bulb is eventually converted to heat. Some of it is
initially radiated as visible light, but most of that is eventually
absorbed by some surface and converted to heat (sort of). I think the
only real loss is any visible light that goes out through a window,
for instance.

But he's comparing it to a heat pump which, rather than converting the
electricity into heat, is using the electricity to move (pump)
existing heat from outside the building to inside. Basically, an air
conditioner in reverse. Supposedly, under the right conditions, this
can bring in more heat than what would be produced by converting 100%
of the electricity it uses directly into heat.

I personally know nothing about how much more or under what conditions.

Duh... Now that I think about it, I'm sure the reason a heat pump can
be so efficient is because if the compressor is inside, most of the
electricity it uses is also converted to heat inside the house on top
of what it brings in from the outside...

HeyBub wrote:
Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html


Hmmm,
Would you kindly explain what PF is? And what is reactive component?

ransley wrote:
On Apr 9, 11:17 am, "HeyBub" wrote:
Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that is, the
load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less efficient than a
load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power. ... These
power losses don't show up directly on our electricity bill, but the
utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter recently and
measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

The good point is I save the money running cfls.
Hi,
Of course. Even with poor PF, if the light output(Lumen) is higher for
the power consumed compared to old incandescent bulbs.

On Apr 9, 11:28*pm, Larry The Snake Guy wrote:
Duh... Now that I think about it, I'm sure the reason a heat pump can
be so efficient is because if the compressor is inside, most of the
electricity it uses is also converted to heat inside the house on top
of what it brings in from the outside...

And of course, you're wrong. As someone explained very well earlier,
a heat pump is efficient because it's MOVING heat, rather than
generating it. Modern heat pumps can generate more heat for the same
Kwh than resistance heaters, even when the outside temp drop into the
teens. BTW, the compresors in the ones I've seen are outside.

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) -
that is, the load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is
to 1, the better. A load with low power factor (.85) draws more
current and is less efficient than a load with a high power factor
for the same amount of useful power. ... These power losses don't
show up directly on our electricity bill, but the utilities sure
see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter
recently and measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy.
"

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

On a head to head competitive basis, where one could buy either, who
knows which would win, or if both would survive? Some people say
they save money, but others are not convinced, especially
considering the up front cost of the CFL. Some say they last
longer, but it has been my experience that they have a greater
failure rate than incandescents.

At any rate, I have purchased enough incandescent bulbs to last me a
life time, and it didn't cost much more than buying one full set of
bulbs for the house. Also, if an incandescent breaks, I don't have
a health issue with mercury.

But most important of all is that I bow my back against any
government rule that tells me how I have to live.

Bob-tx

On Apr 10, 8:34*am, "Bob-tx" wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message

m...





Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) -
that is, the load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is
to 1, the better. A load with low power factor (.85) draws more
current and is less efficient than a load with a high power factor
for the same amount of useful power. ... These power losses don't
show up directly on our electricity bill, but the utilities sure
see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter
recently and measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy.
"

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

On a head to head competitive basis, where one could buy either, who
knows which would win, or if both would survive? * Some people say
they save money, but others are not convinced, especially
considering the up front cost of the CFL. *Some say they last
longer, but it has been my experience that they have a greater
failure rate than incandescents.

At any rate, I have purchased enough incandescent bulbs to last me a
life time, and it didn't cost much more than buying one full set of
bulbs for the house. *Also, if an incandescent breaks, I don't have
a health issue with mercury.

But most important of all is that I bow my back against any
government rule that tells me how I have to live.

Bob-tx- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


A lot of this assumes the Kill-a-Watt Gizmo knows what the hell it's
doing. I'm not so sure anymore. I know a lot of people on here
have used them. I borrowed one from a friend and used it to measure
my old vs new fridge last year. So, on a recent trip to Costco,
when I saw they had the EZ model for $26, I bought one.

The EZ model lets you enter your cost of electricity per KWH and can
then display the cost of electricity used per day, month, year,
etc. Upon trying to enter the cost of my electricity, I discovered
the "set" key just didn't work at all. So, I took it back and
exchanged it. This one, the "set" key works, but the "up" key
doesn't. But until I take it back, I figured I'd try it out a bit.
I put it on the cat water fountain, which uses a small 2.5W plug-in
transformer. It's been on there for 5 days and still reads 0.00$
used per year. It also doesn't register any current or watts
either. The transformer is small, rated at onely 2.5W. Just
checked it for PF and it shows 1.0

Apparently, this draws so little current it can't measure it. But
after having 2 bad units in a row, and this thing being made in China,
I'm beginning to wonder about how accurate or reliable it really is.

On Apr 10, 7:34*am, "Bob-tx" wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message

m...





Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) -
that is, the load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is
to 1, the better. A load with low power factor (.85) draws more
current and is less efficient than a load with a high power factor
for the same amount of useful power. ... These power losses don't
show up directly on our electricity bill, but the utilities sure
see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter
recently and measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy.
"

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

On a head to head competitive basis, where one could buy either, who
knows which would win, or if both would survive? * Some people say
they save money, but others are not convinced, especially
considering the up front cost of the CFL. *Some say they last
longer, but it has been my experience that they have a greater
failure rate than incandescents.

At any rate, I have purchased enough incandescent bulbs to last me a
life time, and it didn't cost much more than buying one full set of
bulbs for the house. *Also, if an incandescent breaks, I don't have
a health issue with mercury.

But most important of all is that I bow my back against any
government rule that tells me how I have to live.

Bob-tx- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

They save 75% on electricity, its a easily proven fact, they last
years I have 50 , many run on photocell and after 2 years 2 failures.
HD has a 7 yr warranty and top color rendition rating at www.popmechanicsmag.com
If you live where AC is used you will really benifit during AC season,
Incandesants are actualy electric heaters only outputting about 6% of
the energy consumed as light you actualy see, the rest is heat, so run
11, 100w incandesants and you run a 1000w electric heater, and you
then run the AC longer to remove that extra 1000w heat. You do and
will see a lower electric bill, every place ive been in Ive cut costs
50% overall by just using Cfls. HDs soft white and good and cheap,
near 1$ a bulb. Mercury, because so much electricity is generated by
coal is it stated using a cfl reduces Mercury air emissions 2-3 times
that over burning incandesants over a bulbs lifetime, Airborn Mercury
is what poisons water, and fish. That thermostat you threw away has
10,000x more mercury in it.

On Apr 10, 7:49*am, wrote:
On Apr 10, 8:34*am, "Bob-tx" wrote:





"HeyBub" wrote in message

om...

Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) -
that is, the load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is
to 1, the better. A load with low power factor (.85) draws more
current and is less efficient than a load with a high power factor
for the same amount of useful power. ... These power losses don't
show up directly on our electricity bill, but the utilities sure
see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter
recently and measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy.
"

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

On a head to head competitive basis, where one could buy either, who
knows which would win, or if both would survive? * Some people say
they save money, but others are not convinced, especially
considering the up front cost of the CFL. *Some say they last
longer, but it has been my experience that they have a greater
failure rate than incandescents.

At any rate, I have purchased enough incandescent bulbs to last me a
life time, and it didn't cost much more than buying one full set of
bulbs for the house. *Also, if an incandescent breaks, I don't have
a health issue with mercury.

But most important of all is that I bow my back against any
government rule that tells me how I have to live.

Bob-tx- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

A lot of this assumes the Kill-a-Watt Gizmo knows what the hell it's
doing. * I'm not so sure anymore. * I know a lot of people on here
have used them. *I borrowed one from a friend and used it to measure
my old vs new fridge last year. * *So, on a recent trip to Costco,
when I saw they had the EZ model for $26, I bought one.

The EZ model lets you enter your cost of electricity per KWH and can
then display the cost of electricity used per day, month, year,
etc. * *Upon trying to enter the cost of my electricity, I discovered
the "set" key just didn't work at all. *So, I took it back and
exchanged it. * This one, the "set" key works, but the "up" key
doesn't. * But until I take it back, I figured I'd try it out a bit.
I put it on the cat water fountain, which uses a small 2.5W plug-in
transformer. * It's been on there for 5 days and still reads 0.00$
used per year. *It also doesn't register any current or watts
either. * The transformer is small, rated at onely 2.5W. * *Just
checked it for PF and it shows 1.0

Apparently, this draws so little current it can't measure it. * But
after having 2 bad units in a row, and this thing being made in China,
I'm beginning to wonder about how accurate or reliable it really is.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You probably have defective units, I measure power supplies of as
little as 4w with the old unit ok. [ I didnt try 2.5w]

On Apr 10, 8:32 am, wrote:
On Apr 9, 11:28 pm, Larry The Snake Guy wrote:

Duh... Now that I think about it, I'm sure the reason a heat pump can
be so efficient is because if the compressor is inside, most of the
electricity it uses is also converted to heat inside the house on top
of what it brings in from the outside...

And of course, you're wrong. As someone explained very well earlier,
a heat pump is efficient because it's MOVING heat, rather than
generating it. Modern heat pumps can generate more heat for the same
Kwh than resistance heaters, even when the outside temp drop into the
teens. BTW, the compresors in the ones I've seen are outside.

I understand what they do, and I said I knew nothing about how
efficient they were at doing it (for the sake of argument, not taking
anyone's word as correct on that). My point was that even if one
happened to be very inefficient at moving heat, it would be, at worst,
atill be functioning as a pretty good radiant heater (as does almost
anything else that uses electricity).

On 2009-04-10, Tony Hwang wrote:

Would you kindly explain what PF is?

Briefly, in AC circuits, if you have non-resistive loads, then the
current waveform and the voltage waveform may be out of sync. The
upshot is that some of the current flowing in the circuit doesn't
perform any work, it is just "circulating". The power factor is the
ratio of the work the given current is actually doing to the work it
could do if voltage and current were in sync.

The reason this matters is that our electrical distribution system
(both inside and outside the home) aren't built from superconductors.
So anytime current flows, there is some loss from the resistance of
the wires. Thus the "circulating" current doesn't do any work, but it
does cause some losses.

In the case of compact flourescents, here's the upshot: A reasonable
estimate of the power factor of a CFL is 0.5. And CFLs are about 4
times as efficient lighting wise as incandescent bulbs. So if you
replace an incandescent with an equivalently sized CFL, you'll be
using 1/4 the power for lighting. However, the current in the circuit
will only drop by 1/2, so the distribution losses won't decrease quite
as much you might think. But overall it is a huge win. [Unless you
live in a heating-only climate and use electric resistive heating, in
which case you have much bigger efficiency problems than your
lighting.]

One important implication of all this, though, is that when sizing
branch circuits for CFLs, after adding up the power of the CFLs, you
need to correct by the power factor to determine the current draw.
For example, if you have a 15 amp branch circuit, maxed out with 18
100W incandescent bulbs on it, and you want more light, you can safely
convert to CFLs with a power factor of 0.5 and use 18 50W CFLs (200W
equivalent), doubling your light output. But if you were to use 18
100W CFLs (400W equivalent), then you would be drawing 30 amps on the
circuit, and you'll have a big problem.

Cheers, Wayne

On Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:35:28 -0600, Tony Hwang wrote:
Would you kindly explain what PF is? And what is reactive component?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor

--
Art Greenberg
artg at eclipse dot net

On Apr 9, 9:36*pm, wrote:
Ernie Willson wrote:
It is true that the old incandescent bulbs do provide heat, however,
like resistance heat, they are very inefficient.

How is it inefficient if that heat is kept inside the
house?

It is not; ALL electricity coming into a house is turned into
something; all of which ends up as heat. Even if it starts off as
light or sound or a TV picture etc. it is all absorbed by the house,
it's furnishings and the people in it! (Well Ok a little light escapes
through the indows!)
We have a bathroom that is almost entirely heated by the six 40 watt
bulbs (240 watts) above the vanity mirror.
When additional heat is needed (cold weather) the 500 watt electric
baseboard with it's thermostat cuts in. Doesn't matter where the
electrically made heat comes from, it's all 100% efficient.
A few homes here are using (air) heat pumps; but gather that at lower
temps, well below freezing for long intervals they don't pump enough
heat from the cold air and the auxiliary electric heaters then cut in.
So there are long periods when the heat pump is not very effective.
(Or efficient!).

On Apr 10, 10:34*am, "Bob-tx" wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message

m...





Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) -
that is, the load presented to the ac line. The closer the PF is
to 1, the better. A load with low power factor (.85) draws more
current and is less efficient than a load with a high power factor
for the same amount of useful power. ... These power losses don't
show up directly on our electricity bill, but the utilities sure
see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter
recently and measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy.
"

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html

On a head to head competitive basis, where one could buy either, who
knows which would win, or if both would survive? * Some people say
they save money, but others are not convinced, especially
considering the up front cost of the CFL. *Some say they last
longer, but it has been my experience that they have a greater
failure rate than incandescents.

At any rate, I have purchased enough incandescent bulbs to last me a
life time, and it didn't cost much more than buying one full set of
bulbs for the house. *Also, if an incandescent breaks, I don't have
a health issue with mercury.

But most important of all is that I bow my back against any
government rule that tells me how I have to live.

Bob-tx- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yeah. We had a phone-in programme recently with a temporary host
replacing the usual one, who was 'Ooing and Ahing' about various
crackpot ideas that people were phoning in to save electricity.
Some were laughable.

The host obviously had no idea about the physics involved. And was
'jumping on any band wagon' on the basis that if it was being touted
it must be good idea!

Really worrying; it was like some of the debates about oil versus, gas
versus electric heating being 'better'.
When it all comes down to matter of cost of fuel, cost of installing
and maintaining the heating equipment etc. etc.

The latest 'thing' here is wood pellet stoves! But all they can burn
of course is pellets! Great some people say and in house about the
size of this one, having bought and installed a $1000 stove, with
vent, they burn about one bag per day at a cost of say $5 per bag. And
there have been some shortages of pellets while the opening of a
proposed pellet making plant is now on hold!
And the pellets have to be bought and driven home in a gas using
vehicle; a pallet of bags of pellets is not a lightweight matter! Try
saying a "pallets of pellets" quickly three times!

Hmm; one bag a day is roughly $150 per month and there is other heat
in any house from lights, cooking, hot water, TV on, maybe small
heater in bathroom etc. etc. so their light bill is say $100. ($150 +
$100 = $250).

That brings their total energy bill to more than my total for this all
electric now 39 year old and therefore not that well insulated by
today's standards, house.

Nothing magic about; you make heat by some (several) means. That costs
money and/or effort, the heat escapes from the house, depending how
fast is function of the structure.

Gas, except expensive propane, not vailable here.

Stay warm!

stan wrote:
On Apr 9, 9:36 pm, wrote:
Ernie Willson wrote:
It is true that the old incandescent bulbs do provide heat, however,
like resistance heat, they are very inefficient.
How is it inefficient if that heat is kept inside the
house?

It is not; ALL electricity coming into a house is turned into
something; all of which ends up as heat. Even if it starts off as
light or sound or a TV picture etc. it is all absorbed by the house,
it's furnishings and the people in it! (Well Ok a little light escapes
through the indows!)
We have a bathroom that is almost entirely heated by the six 40 watt
bulbs (240 watts) above the vanity mirror.
When additional heat is needed (cold weather) the 500 watt electric
baseboard with it's thermostat cuts in. Doesn't matter where the
electrically made heat comes from, it's all 100% efficient.
A few homes here are using (air) heat pumps; but gather that at lower
temps, well below freezing for long intervals they don't pump enough
heat from the cold air and the auxiliary electric heaters then cut in.
So there are long periods when the heat pump is not very effective.
(Or efficient!).

Stan,

Please cite a reference for your statement that heat pumps are less
efficient that incandescent bulbs or resistance heat??

For one kilowatt of energy consumed, incandescent bulbs will provide
very nearly one kilowatt of heating (the same goes for resistance
heaters). On the other hand a heat pump will provide something between
three and four kilowatts of heat for one kilowatt consumed. This means
that, compared to heat pumps, resistance heat is very inefficient. If
you don't understand this go to:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu.../heatpump.html

Where it says:

"Air conditioners and heat pumps are heat engines like the refrigerator.
They make good use of the high quality and flexibility of electric energy
in that they can use one unit of electric energy to transfer more than one
unit of energy from a cold area to a hot area. For example, an electric
resistance heater using one kilowatt-hour of electric energy can transfer
only 1 kWh of energy to heat your house at 100% efficiency.
But 1 kWh of energy used in an electric heat pump could "pump" 3 kWh
of energy from the cooler outside environment into your house for heating.
The ratio of the energy transferred to the electric energy used in the
process is called its coefficient of performance (CP). A typical CP for
a commercial heat pump is between 3 and 4 units transferred per unit
of electric energy supplied."

Simply stated this says that for one kilowatt of electricity consumed a
heat pump can provide between three and four kilowatts of heat. Put
another way, from a heating standpoint heat pumps are from 300% to 400%
efficient. I believe that this author is somewhat conservative and
modern CP's are more like 4 to 6.

EJ in NJ

On Apr 10, 10:29*am, Larry The Snake Guy wrote:
On Apr 10, 8:32 am, wrote:

On Apr 9, 11:28 pm, Larry The Snake Guy wrote:

Duh... Now that I think about it, I'm sure the reason a heat pump can
be so efficient is because if the compressor is inside, most of the
electricity it uses is also converted to heat inside the house on top
of what it brings in from the outside...

And of course, you're wrong. * As someone explained very well earlier,
a heat pump is efficient because it's MOVING heat, rather than
generating it. *Modern heat pumps can generate more heat for the same
Kwh than resistance heaters, even when the outside temp drop into the
teens. *BTW, the compresors in the ones I've seen are outside.

I understand what they do, and I said I knew nothing about how
efficient they were at doing it (for the sake of argument, not taking
anyone's word as correct on that). My point was that even if one
happened to be very inefficient at moving heat, it would be, at worst,
atill be functioning as a pretty good radiant heater (as does almost
anything else that uses electricity).


The heat pump is OUTSIDE. You'd have to stand there to get any
radiant heat from it. And anything that uses electricity is NOT
necessarily a pretty good radiant heater or even a radiant heater at
all. The common electric water heater being one good example, which
heats via conduction.

On Apr 10, 8:25 pm, wrote:
The heat pump is OUTSIDE. You'd have to stand there to get any
radiant heat from it. And anything that uses electricity is NOT
necessarily a pretty good radiant heater or even a radiant heater at
all. The common electric water heater being one good example, which
heats via conduction.

My mistake, but ideally if you were using the heat pump for heating
only, you could make the system more efficient by putting the pump
inside. Probably too much of a noise issue for most people though.

An electric water heater heats the water by induction, but when the
water is not being used most of that heat eventually radiates out into
the home. It's not an effective radiant heater, but still an efficient
one when you're not carrying that heat away for other uses.

HeyBub wrote:
mm wrote:
On Thu, 9 Apr 2009 11:17:23 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

Twice as much.

"Every CFL light contains a small ac-dc power supply with reactive
components in it that will affect the CFL's power factor (PF) - that
is, the load presented to the ac line.
You're quoting someone here and this seems wrong. Why would a load be
measured as a numerical fraction? A load should be in amps or watts
or joules or watt-hours, or whatever, I"m not sure what, but it has to
include some unit of measurement. A load is not a ratio. A power
factor is a ratio, a numeric value with no units (because the unit of
measurement of the numerator is the same unit of measurement of the
denominator.)

The closer the PF is to 1, the better. A load
with low power factor (.85) draws more current and is less
efficient than a load with a high power factor for the same amount
of useful power. ... These power losses don't show up directly on
our electricity bill, but the utilities sure see the effects.

"I put one of my home CFL bulbs on my Kill-O-Watt power meter
recently and measured its power factor: It was .57. This is lousy. "

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html
I'm dubious. Clearly an accruate watt meter and tell how much power
is being used at a given moment, and can average those values or
otherwise calculate how much power is being used during any period of
time.

But where does the numerator in the fraction 0.57 come from. I
presume it's the amount of intended use that is coming from the
appliaces, also measure in watts (or watt-hours if the denominator
is.)

How does a Kill-o-watt meter find out how much light is coming from
from a CFL bulb? How does it learn such a value regarding anything
that uses electricity?

How could a Kill-o-watt meter measure efficiency since it doesn't know
how much work is being accomplished? It only knows how much power is
being used.

It integrates the amp load and the voltage load. If the two are completely
out of phase, the PF is 0.


Plus she doesn't seem to have considered the possiblity that a
Killowatt meter that actually measures watts well might not be
designed to or able to measure the efficiency of a CFL.

For all these reasons, I wouldn't trust what she says about CFL's
using more power than "indicated".


Theoretically, you are correct. As a practical matter, however, that's not
how killowatt-hour meters work.

KWH meters assume a resistive load (PF=1). Anything less than a PF of 1
reduces the reading while a PF 1 (capacitance load) will cause the meter
to spin faster (rare). It's possible for a sufficiently large reactive load
to burn up bags and bags of energy while registering almost nothing on a
standard mechanical KWH meter.

Power factor is real power (watts) divided by apparent power (volt-amps
for linear loads). You can't have a power factor over 1.

If you connect an "ideal" capacitor (no resistance) to a watt-hour meter
it will register zero, just like an ideal inductor. Like an inductor, a
capacitor takes energy from the source twice per cycle and returns the
same energy to the source twice per cycle.

As you said above, mechanical watt-hour meters mechanically integrate
the volts times amps continuously. For an ideal cap or inductor that is
negative twice per cycle. I assume a Kill-o-watt meter measures volts
and amps in very short intervals and multiplies. It then integrates the
readings for watts and watt-hours.

Power factor does not measure efficiency.

--
bud--

On Apr 11, 10:07*am, Larry The Snake Guy wrote:
On Apr 10, 8:25 pm, wrote:

The heat pump is OUTSIDE. * You'd have to stand there to get any
radiant heat from it. And anything that uses electricity is NOT
necessarily a pretty good radiant heater or even a radiant heater at
all. *The common electric water heater being one good example, which
heats via conduction.

My mistake, but ideally if you were using the heat pump for heating
only, you could make the system more efficient by putting the pump
inside.

Would make not a wit of differemce because the motor/compressor is a
sealed unit. Heat loss in the motor is directly transfered to the
refrigerant.


Probably too much of a noise issue for most people though.

An electric water heater heats the water by induction,

Not induction, conduction.


but when the
water is not being used most of that heat eventually radiates out into
the home. It's not an effective radiant heater, but still an efficient
one when you're not carrying that heat away for other uses.

Most water heaters are located in an unfinished basement or garage.
How much of the heat that escapes from the water heater do you think
will go towards heating the living space? With concrete all around
that's at ground temp, even in the case of a basement, I'd say it's
going to be not much. Which makes it very inefficient.

Even if the water heater is in the living space, typically it's in a
utility closet with an outside wall and frequently also contains a
furnace, which is sucking in combustion air. Bye bye to most of the
heat from the water heater there too.

On Apr 11, 10:23*am, wrote:
On Apr 11, 10:07*am, Larry The Snake Guy wrote:

On Apr 10, 8:25 pm, wrote:

The heat pump is OUTSIDE. * You'd have to stand there to get any
radiant heat from it. And anything that uses electricity is NOT
necessarily a pretty good radiant heater or even a radiant heater at
all. *The common electric water heater being one good example, which
heats via conduction.

My mistake, but ideally if you were using the heat pump for heating
only, you could make the system more efficient by putting the pump
inside.

Would make not a wit of differemce because the motor/compressor is a
sealed unit. *Heat loss in the motor is directly transfered to the
refrigerant.

Probably too much of a noise issue for most people though.

An electric water heater heats the water by induction,

Not induction, conduction.

but when the
water is not being used most of that heat eventually radiates out into
the home. It's not an effective radiant heater, but still an efficient
one when you're not carrying that heat away for other uses.

Most water heaters are located in an unfinished basement or garage.
How much of the heat that escapes from the water heater do you think
will go towards heating the living space? * With concrete all around
that's at ground temp, even in the case of a basement, I'd say it's
going to be not much. * Which makes it very inefficient.

Even if the water heater is in the living space, typically it's in a
utility closet with an outside wall and frequently also contains a
furnace, which is sucking in combustion air. * Bye bye to most of the
heat from the water heater there too.

Actualy most of the lost energy goes up the chimney in regular Ng
tanks. Thats why most are no better than 60 EF.