NEWS
Energy saver
Technology is claimed to cut electricity bills by stabilising supply voltage at a low level
A UK company has launched a
system that it claims can shave
10 per cent off electricity bills for
the average household.
The device stabilises domestic
voltage to a lower level (usually
220V in the UK and EU), regardless
of the fluctations in the incoming
supply voltage.
The product shares its name
with the company that created it,
Chester-based VPhase and is
expected to be commercially available
by the end of the year.
The VPhase technology fits
inside a plastic box about half the
size of a standard fuse box. The
device incorporates a two-winding
transformer, small printed circuit
board and switching components.
The entire unit is wired to the
fuse box.
‘The circuit we developed
enables the voltage at a property to
be held at a fixed level regardless of
the incoming supply voltage and
how it fluctuates,’ said Dr Lee Juby,
VPhase chief executive officer and
one of the inventors of the technology.
‘We do this by generating
anti-phase components of voltage.’
Juby gave an example of how
the transformer converts the voltage.
‘Say there is 250V being
delivered to the house and you
want 230,’ he said. ‘You need to get
rid of 20V, so we create 20V in antiphase
and effectively subtract that
from the incoming voltage to the
property.’
The printed circuit board has
been designed to maintain consistency
even when incoming power
fluctuates.
‘If the voltage to the property
starts to fluctuate, say it drops to
245V, but we still want to achieve
230V, our anti-phase component
reduces to 15V so we still maintain
the desired output at the property,’
said Juby.
After testing the VPhase technology,
the developers found that
the device consumes about one per
cent of the household power load.
The net saving is 10 per cent.
‘We expect VPhase will deliver a
12
Stabiliser: the technology sits inside a plastic box about half the size of a standard fuse box and is wired to the fuse box
payback of three years for the average
UK home,’ claimed Juby.
The VPhase is designed to
handle 2kW of continuous power,
but it is able to run for short durations
into an overload capability.
‘If the overload continues or if
the loading goes even higher, then
the system bypasses VPhase for a
short period of time,’ said Juby.
The challenge for the developers
in the initial design stage was to
find the right contactor to bypass
the device and switch the power
circuit.
‘We knew if we wanted to
bypass the device we had to have
a contact that could carry 50A of
power and be a single phase contactor,’
he said. ‘They’re few and far
between and most of them have a
continuous power draw.’
The developers then stumbled
upon the idea of using the same
contactors used in electricity card
meters. When the electricity card
meter runs out of credit the contactor
can allow for £5 worth of grace
before cutting the power off. ‘It’s a
latching device so there is no continuous
power draw,’ said Juby.
While voltage control reduction
and stabilisation for energy efficiency
is not a new idea, this is the
first time the technology will be
available at a low cost of around
£100 for households and small
commercial applications.
Most electrical devices in UK
homes are designed to operate in
the 216 to 253V range and the
VPhase developers said test results
demonstrate that volts above 216V
do not necessarily give additional
performance. High voltage levels
often cause surplus energy to be
wasted in the form of heat. For
example a fridge does not get
colder with a higher voltage supply.
Tests conducted by the VPhase
developers also showed that light
bulbs operating with higher voltage
burn out sooner than those operating
with lower voltage. This gave
further proof that, for the majority of
appliances, high voltage wastes
energy and can shorten the operating
life.
Juby said the initial VPhase
product is designed to be a standalone
unit, which will sit along side
a fuse box in a house.
‘We are in discussions with fuse
box manufacturers about future
projects that will integrate the unit
inside the fuse box itself,’ he said.
At the same time the company
is in discussions with a number of
utilities to carry out independent
testing of the product, with the
intention of determining the suitability
of VPhase’s product for the
UK Carbon Emissions Reduction
Target (CERT) scheme.
Siobhan Wagner
the EnGIneeR 19 MAY–1 JUNE 2008
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