Total harmonic distortion

The money in this fix is the equipment you don't replace and the process interruptions you don't suffer from.

Now, let's talk about harmonic distortion.

So what is harmonic distortion? The symptoms are excessive heat, failing equipment, computer-controlled equipment that malfunctions, and lost data.

One telling sign is the same infrared result I described under grounding, which is heat on your grounding conductors or on your neutral.

Harmonic distortion is a bending of the smooth wave's shape in both voltage and current.

Nonlinear loads cause it.

A nonlinear load is equipment that switches its power draw on and off momentarily instead of drawing power smoothly.

That extra current does no useful work, but it still heats wires, motors, and transformers.

Uh, yeah, it was genuinely taking, um, two point five eight kilowatts into our kettle.

And while doing it, um, its, uh, THD, total harmonic distortion, uh, was, uh, was remarkably not bad at all.

Uh, quite comparable.

In fact, arguably even better than straight mains.