What is dirty electricity, and should you care?

"Dirty electricity" sounds like marketing. The phenomenon underneath it is standard electrical engineering: high-frequency voltage transients riding on top of the clean 50Hz sine wave your home is supplied with. It's real, it's measurable with proper instruments, and it's increasing — because of how modern devices use power.

Where it comes from

Old appliances drew power smoothly. Modern ones — phone chargers, laptop supplies, LED drivers, variable-speed pumps and air conditioners, and above all solar inverters — convert power by switching it on and off thousands of times a second. That switching is efficient, which is why everything uses it, but each conversion kicks high-frequency noise back into the wiring it's connected to. The noise doesn't stay put: it travels through the circuits in your walls. In the trade this family of issues is called electromagnetic interference or poor power quality; "dirty electricity" is the household name for the same thing.

What the evidence says — honestly

Engineering-wise, the case is settled: elevated transients can interfere with sensitive electronics, cause audible buzz in audio gear, and contribute to LED flicker. Health-wise, the picture is genuinely unsettled. Some researchers have linked elevated high-frequency transients to symptoms like fatigue, headaches, and poor sleep, particularly in sensitive individuals — but the research base is thin, and no Australian regulator recognises dirty electricity as an established health hazard. We won't tell you otherwise.

Our position is the same precautionary logic we apply to EMF: measure first, and where levels are high, reduce them at little cost and no downside. What we push back on is the gadget-first approach — buying filters by the boxful before anyone has measured anything. Filters in the wrong place do nothing except cost money, and some can slightly increase current on the circuit.

Measure, then fix

Measurement takes a calibrated meter, readings across circuits at different times of day (solar inverters only make noise while the sun's up), and a bit of detective work unplugging suspects. We do this with a calibrated DE meter as part of our dirty electricity service — you get actual numbers, circuit by circuit.

Reduction, in order of effectiveness: replace or relocate the worst-generating devices (a $30 quality charger can beat a $300 filter); put chronically noisy equipment on its own circuit, away from bedrooms and desks; filter the specific circuits where you spend your time, sized to the measured problem; and for new builds, design it out from the start with circuit separation and quality drivers. Solar owners: inverter placement and circuit routing matter more than any accessory — worth reviewing before and after installation. More detail on our dirty electricity service page.

Should you care?

If your lights flicker or buzz, your audio hums, you've just added solar, or you simply want your sleeping spaces to be as electrically quiet as reasonably possible — it's worth measuring. Measurement is cheap, honest, and tells you whether there's anything to fix. That's the whole philosophy: no fear, no gadgets-by-default, just numbers and good engineering.