[SOLVED] Do voltage regulators save you money

[sendhere878]

Hello all.

When I test my apartment's electrical outlets they all read 128 Volts. Is this voltage high enough to cause appliances and electronics to degrade faster? And, does it cost you more money in kilowatt-hours? I purchased a voltage regulator. Does this save me from paying higher electricity costs?

Thanks.

Sorry for not completing the following
Using Ohm's law Power = Volt * Amp
Power is proportional to volts, so a rise in volts is a rise in power?
So, I purchased an APC voltage regulator. It outputs 115 volts now.
So my question is if I'm saving power energy now.

 

[jonnyguru]

What PSU?

 

[refillable]

No, it won't save you in bills. It can even add up the bills because of internal resistance on the voltage regulator. 128 V is fine for PSUs, the one that you worry the most is when it goes lower than 100V, because the current might get large and destroy the FETs or diodes inside the PSU.

 

[dorsai]

Hello all.

When I test my apartment's electrical outlets they all read 128 Volts. Is this voltage high enough to cause appliances and electronics to degrade faster? And, does it cost you more money in kilowatt-hours? I purchased a voltage regulator. Does this save me from paying higher electricity costs?

Thanks.

128v is fine for an appliance.

I am really curious as to what you purchased though for a "voltage regulator".

 

[sendhere878]

No, it won't save you in bills. It can even add up the bills because of internal resistance on the voltage regulator. 128 V is fine for PSUs, the one that you worry the most is when it goes lower than 100V, because the current might get large and destroy the FETs or diodes inside the PSU.

Ok. i didn't think of that. I also edited my initial question above.

 

[refillable]

Ok. i didn't think of that. I also edited my initial question above.

PSUs will only suck as much power as it provides plus heat losses from the AC-DC conversion. So if you have higher voltage then it will be that your PSU consumes the same amount of power, and the current will make up for that.

 

[jonnyguru]

Hello all.

When I test my apartment's electrical outlets they all read 128 Volts. Is this voltage high enough to cause appliances and electronics to degrade faster? And, does it cost you more money in kilowatt-hours? I purchased a voltage regulator. Does this save me from paying higher electricity costs?

Thanks.

Sorry for not completing the following
Using Ohm's law Power = Volt * Amp
Power is proportional to volts, so a rise in volts is a rise in power?
So, I purchased an APC voltage regulator. It outputs 115 volts now.
So my question is if I'm saving power energy now.

No. Because there are losses in the voltage regulator. There's no such thing as a zero loss circuit.

You're charged electricity based on kWh, which is kilo-WATT-hours. Power consumption in wattage is consistent regardless of voltage because if the voltage is high, the current is low. If anything, a higher voltage is better because it's less current. Higher current is higher resistance.

So you've wasted money on a voltage regulator and you're wasting more power/money from the energy wasted by the voltage regulator.