Voltage Optimisation - The true value for homeowners ?

Just got this in an email today, kind of sums it up really !

What's your take on them? I heard it made your Hoover not suck and your food processor chop slower?

Don't forget they will also screw your volt drop on circuits

Wont work on LED lights, useless on cooker, kettle,immersion, laptop, and TV, flat screen with auto compensating power supplies - what's left .. dishwasher, washing m/c, tumble drier, all will have their heating period extended so no net effect.

The off switch is a far better device for saving ££


Commercial environment completely different environment, for the home, I don't see that the honwowner will ever get their ££ back.

Yes for commercials (most) no for home.

We have had one on trial for a couple of years, it makes the toast take longer in the morning, and appears to give off more heat than seems good for something that's supposed to be saving energy.

We installed 1 on a house with an old swimming pool with basic fan, dehumidifier, pumps etc where I figured it might be worth doing, beyond that we installed one on a house where it made the voltage control trip in and out every evening around tea time as the local grid voltage dropped to around 220 at that point anyway, so the additional -18V reduction took it under the limits.

That was the last one we installed, still have it in the warehouse. Load of rubbish IMO for most domestic situations.

(My first post in the PV lounge :uhoh2: )


The Voltage Optimisation Rep caught my attention at one of the Elex shows a few years ago. He went through his well scripted speech about "saving money" & "saving the planet" etc etc etc.


The facts are this:- Any CE (Central European) stamp on any European approved appliance will run at a minimum of 220V AC as from 1990. This is what they base their product on btw. Now lets look at reality! Any lamp in any room in any house in any city in the land will be brighter at the normal 238V - 248V that we are supplied with. Now lets reduce this voltage to 220V, what will happen?????? Light bulbs are less bright, kettles take longer to boil, toasters take longer to make white bread into golden brown.

The complexity of the install is a nightmare! "Only certain circuits and/or appliances can be feed from our supply".


If this is the answer for all home owners energy bills problems, why isn't installed as standard to all the new build houses going up that require a "Green Efficient clean bill of health"???? Leave that up to you Gents to talk about? I'm just a visitor lol.

as someone else has already said, better to use the off switch and look at what energy you are currently using before going into this stuff. At work I have been pestered over the years about getting solar panels installed on a large roof to ease the electricity burden, my suggestion was until you have energy efficient lighting / refrigeration / air con etc then don't bother! Install this stuff as a last option after you have done all of the above.

Replacing the hundreds of 2*55w PLL light fittings with LED panels would save atleast half on the energy bill, I have worked out payback periods for them etc but the company is run by 2 accountants now (CEO was the company accountant) so getting anything on capital expenditure is a bloody nightmare hence i have now given up and do my day then go home.

It's been a while since we had a thread about voltage optimisers. A year or two ago they were all the rage with a thread every couple of weeks, they were obviously being hard-sold at that time and probably went out of fashion. How many of these units do you actually come across in domestic premises? I'd be interested to know what kind of saturation they achieved.

The site I'm working on here is 380/220 so we have voltage optimisers built in so to speak.

All the office lighting a 60 x 60 fluorescent T5 14watt and so my design spec is taken at 220 volt. Every circuit I put in has to be installed with a 2.5 cable, because we have found out that with 1.5 though it would be in line with the 3% VD, often you get flickering on the tubes due to the lower voltage, so we have learnt to install the 2.5mm cable.

I have even heard on some office/commercial installations back home they are experiencing problems with these units.

As SteveH rightly points out, there are other ways to reduce cost THAT ACTUALLY WORK

malcolmsanford said:

The site I'm working on here is 380/220 so we have voltage optimisers built in so to speak.

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The standard voltage where I am is also 380/220 but that's 220 on a good day, mostly it ranges between 205 and 218 so I can sympathize with your problems Malcolm.