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[djern]

I stumbled across this KVAR device that is suppose to lower your electric bill.  It says it also reduces noise on the line.

My question is if anyone has seen/used one of these devices and if it will "filter" out the X10 signal on the line?

I am including a link to the website only for those a lot smarter than myself about electricity to check it and see what they think about the "filtering" of the X10 signal.

http://www.kvar.com/1000/home/

Thanks for any assistance.

[Charles Sullivan]

I stumbled across this KVAR device that is suppose to lower your electric bill.  It says it also reduces noise on the line.

My question is if anyone has seen/used one of these devices and if it will "filter" out the X10 signal on the line?

I am including a link to the website only for those a lot smarter than myself about electricity to check it and see what they think about the "filtering" of the X10 signal.

http://www.kvar.com/1000/home/

Thanks for any assistance.

It's unlikely that the KVAR will result in any cost savings for the typical residence.  The usual household electric meter (with the rotating disk) measures only the "real" power being consumed.  It ignores the reactive component which the KVAR is intended to reduce and which is normally quite small in a residence anyway.

Metering of electrical usage in industrial establishments which have a lot of large motors includes monitoring of the reactive component, and there's a surcharge if the reactive component is too high.  The company will usually attempt to avoid this surcharge by adding enough capacitance on the power lines to cancel or greatly reduce the inductive reactive component introduced by the motors.

I don't know exactly how the KVAR works but to the extent it adds equivalent capacitance on the power lines (which is the only way to cancel inductive reactance) it would act as a "signal sucker" for X10 signals.
 

[Brian H]

From the Product Description. They electronically vary the amount of capacitance across the power feed to correct for inductive loads.
I also feel it may suck up X10 and other power line protocol communications.

[dave w]

Probably made by the same company that claims their fuel line magnet increases gas mileage by "aligning" the fuel molecules prior to injection.

P.T. Barnum is enjoying this.

[Charles Sullivan]

In the home where electrical usage is metered by the typical rotating disk electric meter, the only cost savings I can see would result from the following factors:

Electric motors are designed to operate at a specific voltage, say 120V, and run less efficiently at lower voltages.  So for example a refrigerator would use more energy maintaining the same temperature if the voltage dropped to 110V.

A reactive load will draw more current which will not in itself effect the operation of the refrigerator or its measured power usage, but the additional current will cause the voltage across the motor to be lower due to the electrical resistance in the wiring between the refrigerator and the power company transformer.

In addition to the reduced efficiency of the motor, there will be wasted energy in the heat generated in the wiring.   That part which occurs in the wiring between the electric meter and the refrigerator does represent measured energy usage and is charged to the customer.  (Which may not be so bad if you live in a mostly-cold climate as that wasted energy will go towards heating your house.)

(The cost of wasted energy which occurs in the wiring between the power company transformer and electric meter has to be eaten by the power company, which is why they add a surcharge for reactive power.)

FYI, the amount of reactive power is generally expressed by the quantity "Power Factor" (PF) , which is the ratio of "real" power to the product of voltage and current.  With a purely resistive load, the PF will be 1.  With a purely inductive (or purely capacitive) load, the PF will be 0.