holwa

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  • in reply to: How green are Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs)? #12814
    holwa
    Participant

    Nobody seem to have mentioned the very poor power factor that most CFLs operate at – somewhere around 0.5 I believe. While this may not concern individuals who are only paying for kWh the cumulative effect in the supply network means there can be lots of reactive power to provide. The fact that they cannot be dimmed makes them unsuitable in many applications. Fittings designed for CFLs seem to be a long time coming which means more light is often required to achieve similar useability becasue much is wasted by the poor optics of the fitting

    holwa
    Participant

    Discrimination is easier to achieve with fuses than circuit breakers especially in small sizes. At a small installation you can get three layers of discrimination with 50A, 32A and 16A fuses or even 40A, 25A , 10A. You can’t do this with breakers. Often these installations have a fairly small diesel generator and the top level of protection should be kept small enough to be cleared by the available current from the alternator. If there is a UPS, that complicates matters further. Fuses are often the only option to ensure a short circuit in a sub-circuit does not take out theb whole site (it has happened)

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