Newsgroups: sci.engr.electrical.compliance
Subject: Re: transient voltage surge suppressors?
References:  <[email protected]> 
"Lola"  writes:

> They state that because it regulates the spikes, better and more efficient
> energy use is obtained, thus lowering energy costs.  Now I'm not so sure.
> Lola

This does not hold true.

TVSS gets rid of overvoltage splikes. 
So the voltage does not get over the specified voltage 
and damage equipment. When TVSS operates, it does not do 
anything when voltage is at normal level. But when it gets very high, 
TVSS acts like a short circuit to fight agains overvoltage 
(which are short spikes normally). So when overvoltage get in, 
the TVSS vill consume the extra energy trying to get in. 


TVSS does not in any way give you more efficient energy use. 
It does not change how equipment take power when they operate 
normally. So it does not save anything. Practically it does 
not do anythign until overvoltage spike occurs (and at that 
short time a typical TVSS will consume lots of power but for 
a very short time).


When nergy companies talk about spikes, they could mean another thing.
They could mean "load spikes", which mean high load on power
lines (much more than normal load). If the consumption of power 
energy would be constant (not some short times when power 
is needed much more than other times, called "load spikes"), 
it would be more effeicient than in the enviromenent where 
load varies. This kind of "load spikes" are generally handled 
(where possible) by power company in various ways. 
TVSS does not help in solving this in any way.



-- 
Tomi Engdahl (http://www.iki.fi/then/)
Take a look at my electronics web links and documents at 
http://www.epanorama.net/