The Pro Power Save will not cut electric bills, nor will any other scam device of its kind

Devices that promise grand savings on electricity are not new, and they have not disappeared. Indeed, many Facebook posts now promote little white boxes with plugs and green lights. Take, for just example, one recent post promoting a supposed review from “muskenvironmental.com” for a product called the Pro Power Save, supposedly invented by Elon Musk. “Every American can slash their electricity bill by 90% using this revolutionary technology”, the supposed review claims, linking to another page claiming that the Pro Power Save can protect both electronics and people from electric surges and “dirty electricity”.

The Pro Power Save is the latest in a line of nearly-identical-looking devices with names like “eSaver Energy Saver”, “Miracle Watt”, “Watt Saver”, or “Powersave” (see this 2020 review from Science Feedback). These devices are widely available for sale on Amazon, eBay, and other online shops. Many recent claims invoke Musk. For example, a now-deleted website entitled “msuksavings.com” [sic], with a near-identical format to “muskenvironmental.com”, claimed Musk could now sell the Pro Power Save after winning a legal battle with the US Department of Justice.

As we show in this article, these products are scams relying on misleading advertising. The websites that support them are filled with false information and fraudulent images. Furthermore, in this review, we show that the Pro Power Save is not actually technically sound. Using the Pro Power Save or any similar device will not reduce customers’ electrical bills¹. And, contrary to the website’s claims, safety groups have found that devices like Pro Power Save are cheaply made and potentially hazardous.

Pro Power Save relies on false advertising

Neither “muskenvironmental.com” nor “msuksavings.com” have any apparent connection to Musk, nor has Musk ever publicly endorsed any power saving device. The Facebook post and “muskenvironmental.com” also reference other celebrities like Joanna Gaines and Leonardo DiCaprio, respectively. Neither Gaines nor DiCaprio has ever spoken about a power-saving device (in fact, Gaines is aware of her appearance in the ad and has explicitly denied consenting to it).

The faux reviews contain numerous images that appear to be fabricated or given false context. To give just one example, “muskenvironmental.com” claims that Musk was inspired to create the Pro Power Saver after a Tesla employee named “Dorothy Smith” died of heatstroke “after falling behind on her electric bills”. The article backs this claim with an image supposedly depicting Dorothy Smith and her husband. The image actually shows a husband and wife named James Mueller and Donna Mueller, who passed away in 2022 after being struck by lightning in Washington, DC. Neither the tragic incident nor the victims had any connection to Tesla.

For another example, “muskenvironmental.com” shows as proof of savings a bill submitted by “a reader”, using an image of a Los Angeles area electricity bill from 2019. We were unable to identify the specific origin of this image, but it did not originate from a reader; similar images with identical numbers appear in other posts at least as early as 2019 (this, for example, purporting to show how homeowners can save on electricity by installing solar panels).

Addressing “msuksavings.com”, the US Justice Department has never taken Musk to court about a power-saving invention. This particular claim may reflect the fact that the Department has been at odds with Musk’s companies in the past: the Department is currently investigating Tesla for allegedly misleading customers and previously sued SpaceX over hiring practices. However, none of these cases have anything to do with a supposed energy-bill-cutting device.

The product site contains more misleading information, referencing supposed reviews “as seen in” third-party publications. None of these reviews exist. In fact, one of the cited outlets – Forbes – wrote its own fact-check debunking Musk’s connection to the device. Another – the magazine Popular Electronics – last published under that name in 1999.

So, the sites themselves are filled with unreliable information. But does the Pro Power Save have any technical merit?

“Cleaning” a sine wave does little to cut electric bills

The answer is no. Even if the Pro Power Save worked (and, as we show later, it likely doesn’t work), it would not reduce customers’ bills.

The Pro Power Save’s marketing claims “all appliances draw more power than they need to run, due to inefficiencies and noise on the sine wave created by the electric companies to overcharge customers and scam them.” The claim doesn’t specify the specific “inefficiencies and noise” at hand, but images on “muskenvironmental.com” and “msuksavings.com” appear to show processes called power factor correction and noise suppression. These processes are not generally relevant for electricity in the home.

Alternating current (AC) does travel in the form of a sine wave. This wave actually consists of two components: voltage and current. Ideally, the two waves are in phase, aligned with each other. But devices that rely on AC power – such as fans, refrigerators, or anything else with a motor – cause the current wave to lag behind the voltage wave. This undesirable lag wastes power, meaning that a building draws more power than it actually uses². A power factor correction cuts wasted electricity by compensating for this lag².

Power factor corrections don’t really matter to home users. Most electricity providers only charge residential customers for the power they actually use, as we point out in our 2020 review. The situation is different for industrial users, who often draw large amounts of power to run heavy machinery powered by AC motors. Utilities will often add surcharges for business customers that don’t perform power factor corrections. 

But home customers need not worry about this. So, despite the claim that companies create noise “to overcharge customers and scam them”, the reality is that electrical providers already do much of the Pro Power Save’s job themselves.

Home customers also usually need not worry about electrical noise. Electricity never truly comes in a perfectly smooth sine wave, because all circuits carry some amount of electrical noise: fluctuations thanks to everything from resistance in the circuitry to bolts of lightning. But these noises have little impact on a customer’s bill. Tom Nelson at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology told Science Feedback: “The cleaning of the sine waves is unlikely to change the amount of electric energy used.”

The Pro Power Save will not make your home safer

The Pro Power Save’s website also claims the device will make the home safer and protect other devices from damage. The device supposedly “eliminates harmful shocks & surges” and “removes carbon from the electrical circuit”, an act that can purportedly “significantly reduce your exposure to harmful electromagnetic radiation”. It couches these claims with meaningless technobabble such as “groundbreaking Electricity Stabilizing Technology”, “advanced capacitors,” and “patent-pending magnetic filter”.

In contrast, numerous reviewers (see ElectroBOOM, Big Clive, and Electrical Safety First) have cracked open devices like the Pro Power Save and found that they usually contain little more than an LED light and a single, basic capacitor (a component that stores electric charge). This is not advanced technology.

This circuit will not act as a surge protector (which can use capacitors, but under a very different setup)³ or cleanse the circuitry of carbon deposits (which usually requires a combination of physical force and chemical cleaning). In fact, as “electromagnetic radiation” simply refers to anything on the electromagnetic spectrum, most of which is harmless to humans, then the light on the device itself emits electromagnetic radiation.

On the contrary, there is evidence that devices like the Pro Power Save are actually quite unsafe. Buckinghamshire and Surrey Trading Standards, an English local government product safety team, tested four such devices and found that they were cheaply constructed from low-quality parts, posing potential shock and fire hazards. The UK charity Electrical Safety First, tested four such devices and similarly found them to be poorly manufactured fire hazards – in fact, one even threatened to damage its socket. As a bonus, both groups found that the devices failed to reduce electrical consumption and, in some cases, actually increased it.

Conclusion

The Pro Power Save is a scam, just like its other incarnations that have appeared on the internet in the past several years. Elon Musk neither invented nor marketed a device that reduces customers’ electrical bills. The websites promoting it are filled with false information, including images that are taken from other sources or entirely fabricated. Furthermore, the Pro Power Save’s claims have little basis in real electrical engineering. It will not actually reduce most customers’ electrical bills, even if it does work. Whether it does work at all is very much in question, as inspections of similar devices have cataloged flaws and safety failures.

References:

• 1 – National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2009) Regarding Electric Energy Savings, Power Factors, and Carbon Footprints: A Primer.
• 2 – Ware. (2006) Power Factor Correction. IEE Wiring Matters.
• 3 – Fernando et al. (2022) Supercapacitor assisted surge absorber technique: high performance transient surge protectors for consumer electronics. IEEE Power Electronics Magazine.