Years ago, even though I knew better, I bought one of the Green Plugs
mostly out of curiosity. I have a watt-hour meter that I used to
measure a day's worth of power consumption from my freezer without the
Green Plug. Then I tried again with the Green Plug between the freezer
and the watt-hour meter. Surprise, surprise, the consumption was
greater with the Green Plug in place, and by more than just a few
percent.
I took it apart, and saw what looked like a triac clamped to a heat sink,
plus some other circuitry. I think this was a scam. I bet they shaved
a few watts off a purely resistive load like a light bulb, making their
demonstration watt-hour meter run slower, but clearly they did not
achieve any positive results with a modern induction motor.
Steve McCollum
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