yanyewkay said:
However, these("PFC" enabled devices and some claiming "Active PFC") is the basis for many of the 'power saving devices' being sold in many place in sg, I'm not sure if you've seen such devices that plugs into the wall socket.
I haven't seen them, but it sounds fishy. About the only way I can imagine to achieve this in a small plug-in device would be to incorporate an inverter. That would fix the power factor, but also increase energy consumption (due to the limited power conversion efficiency of such devices). If it was so easy to correct for it, SP wouldn't have all those cpacitor banks, right?
The problems caused is that Sg Powers have some capacitor banks placed around sg to balance the mostly inductive load of appliances(fan, previously incadescent bulbs and i remember clearly TV belonging in the list of inductive loads).
One typical inductive load is fluorescent lighting. In contrast, incandescent lighting is about as non-inductive as it gets. In fact, because of their low inductance, lightbulb-like devices are used to measure high frequency currents that most other meters can't. Inductive loading due to incandescend lamps occurs when transformers are involved, as in the case of low-voltage halogen lamps that have become popular only in recent years - even then, well-designed systems aren't that bad. Most TVs and CRTs nowadays use switching power supplies; the main inductive component is usually the degaussing coil that runs only for a split second after power-up. Of course, if you leave your TV on "standby" instead of turning it off after use then it might feed all its standby power from a small auxiliary transformer, but at a low level.
Phantom power isn't "consumed", and inductive (or capacitive) loads are not the reason why some appliances consume more or less power. (It does though pose a problem for electricity distribution networks, as the currents may trip fuses, saturate transformer cores, cause voltage spikes when turned off, and cause transmission line losses.) Industrial price structure does usually not only reflect the cost of the energy, but also the strain on the distribution network and the predictability of load patterns.
The reason why I reacted a bit harsh to your earlier statement is the rationale. By the same logic, organic matter would have to be considered hazardous waste - life is largely based on phosphorus, and elementary phosphorus plus some of its compounds are hazardous.