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Power Factor Explained. In this tutorial we look at power factor. We’ll learn what is power
factor, what is good and bad power factor, how to compare power factor, the causes of power
factor, why and how to fix power factor as well as some example calculations to help you
learn electrical engineering.
Scroll to the bottom to watch the FREE YouTube tutorial
We pay for a beer by the glass, but inside the glass there is both beer and foam. The more
beer we have, the less foam there is so we get good value for money. If there is a lot of foam
then there’s not a lot of beer and we’re not getting good value for money.
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The foam represents our reactive power or our kVAr, kilovolt-amps reactive. This is the
useless stuff, there will always be some and we have to pay for it but we can’t use it so we
don’t want too much of it. (it does actually have a use and purpose but we’ll see why later
on)
The combination of these kW and kVAr is our apparent power or our kVA. kilovolt-amps
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If we look at a typical residential electricity bill we’ll typically just see a fee for the amount of
kWh’s used because the power factor and electricity consumption will be very low, so the
electricity companies tend to not worry about this.
However, on commercial and industrial electricity invoices, especially buildings with smart or
interval electricity meters, we’ll likely see charges and information for the amount of kW,
kWh’s, kVA’s and kVArh’s used. Large buildings in particular will often see reactive power
charges in there also, but this depends on the electricity supplier.
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Reactive power charges occur when the power factor of a building falls below a certain level,
this level is defined by the electricity supplier but it typically starts at around 0.95 and below.
A perfect power factor would be 1.0, however in reality this is almost impossible to achieve.
We’ll come back to this later in the video.
In large commercial buildings, the overall power factor is likely to sit in the following
categories
Commercial office buildings are usually somewhere between 0.98 and 0.92, industrial
buildings could be as low as 0.7. We’ll look at what causes this shortly.
Both cookies
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compared to the second one, meaning we’re not getting as much value for money.
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The first motor will need to draw 11.5 kVA from the electricity grid to provide the 10kW of
power.
The second motor will need to draw just 10.9 kVA from the electricity grid to provide the
10kW of power.
This means the first motor has 5.7 kVAr’s and the second motor has just 4.3 kVAr’s.
Remember our kW’s is the beer that’s the useful stuff. The kVAr’s is the foam, that’s the not
so useful stuff. The kVA is what we’re going to pay for and that’s the kW + the kVAr.
kVA = kW / PF
For kVAr I used the square root of kVA squared subtract kW squared, so square root of
11.5kVA^2 minus 10kW^2
We could have also found the power factor from the kW and kVA using 10kW divided by
11.5kVA
PF = kW / kVA
We could have found the kW from the power factor and kVA using 0.87 divided by 11.5kVA
to get 10
kW = PF x kVA
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If we drew a phasor diagram then the voltage and current would be parallel, so all the
energy drawn from the electricity supply goes into doing work, in this case creating heat.
Earlier in the article I said the foam or kVAr is useless, that’s not exactly true, we actually
need some reactive power to create and maintain the magnetic field which rotates the motor.
The reactive power is wasted in the sense that we get no work from it but still have to pay
for it, although we do need it to be able to do the work in the first place. We covered how
induction motors work previously, click here to see that tutorial.
If we drew a phasor diagram for a purely inductive load then the current will be at an angle
below the voltage line, meaning not all the electricity consumed is doing work.
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If we drew a phasor diagram for a purely capacitive load then the current line would be at an
angle above the voltage line as it is leading.
To correct poor power factor, we can add capacitors or inductors to the circuit which will
realign the current back into phase and bring the power factor closer to 1. If we have a
lagging power factor caused by high inductive loads in the circuit then we add capacitors,
this is most common. If we have a leading power factor caused by high capacitive loads then
we add an inductive load to the circuit. These need to be calculated and we’ll see some
example calculations at the end of the article.
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Currently the building has a total apparent power (kVA) value of 64.1kVA and we find that by
just diving the kW (50kW) by the power factor of 0.78.
It also has a reactive power of 40.1kVAr, we find that by taking the square root of the kVA^2
squared and subtracting it from the kW^2 squared. So take the square root of 64.1kVA
squared minus 50kW squared.
Then we calculate what the values should be if we had the power factor of 0.96.
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Then we find our reactive power which is the square root of kVA^2 squared minus the kW
squared so square root of 52.1kVA^2 minus 50kW^2 squared which gives us 14.6kVAr.
The capacitor therefore needs to make up the difference between these two so 40.1kVAr
minus 14.6kVAr which equals 25.5kVAr capacitor. This is a simplified example, check with a
supplier.
YouTube Tutorial
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Paul Evans
http://www.TheEngineeringMindset.com
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