Manila’s Little Electric Power Saver

Recently there’s been a bit of buzz about a new device being sold by Ace Hardware, Manila’s dominant hardware retail franchise: a plug-in device called Extreme Power Saver that claims to be able to reduce electric waste from certain home appliances by 20-35%. Here’s the description on the (shady looking) box:

An electrical device that helps reduce electrical consumption of inductive or motorized home equipment of appliances such as air conditioning, water pumps, washing machines, etc. Extreme Power Saver is a device that recycles the partial electric waste generated by the said inductive equipment. This recycled electrical power is then fed back to the same circuit at the same time thus reducing the need for fresh electrical power.

Households all over Manila are debating the merits of this device. There’s an online forum about it too and some of the testimonials are pretty interesting (a bit of Filipino required). One poster talks of buying a similar gadget a couple of years ago. He was curious why it was so heavy so he opened it up and saw that it was essentially a capacitor – a basic voltage regulator – mixed in with a lot of junk metal to create the illusion that it was something more. No official autopsy on this new version yet but the flashing lights on the exterior are almost certainly just for (power-wasting) show.

The hardware sales clerks at Ace I spoke with are still suspicious, but that hasn’t stopped some customers from returning to buy more. It seems the device has won over plenty of people who have expressed positive feedback and with the cost of electricity in Manila having become so expensive, even doubters (willing to try anything) are giving it a go.