To understand POWER FACTOR (PF) , visualize a horse pulling a railroad car down a railroad track.

Because the railroad ties are uneven, the horse must pull the car from the side of the track.

The horse is pulling the railroad car at an angle to the direction of the car's travel.

The power required to move the car down the track is the working 'Real Power' (KW) .

The effort of the horse is the total 'Apparent P ower' (KVA) .

Because of the angle of the horse's pull, not all of the horse's effort is used to move the car down the track, the car will not move sideways; therefore, the sideways pull of the horse is wasted effort or nonworking 'Reactive Power' (KVAR).

The angle of the horse's pull is related to POWER FACTOR, which is defined as the ratio of Real (working) Power to Apparent (total) Power, if the horse is led closer to the centre of the track, the angle of side pull decreases and the Real Power approaches the value of the Apparent Power. Therefore, the ratio of Real Power to Apparent Power (the POWER FACTOR) approaches 1.

As the POWER FACTOR (PF) approaches 1, the Reactive (nonworking KVAR) Power approaches 0, this equates to lower energy usage, lower demand extras/fees, & lower power bills!

Suppose there are two companies, Brown Bros and Jones Ltd, that both use 500 KW annually, Brown Bros has a POWER FACTOR of 0.50 which means that it will use 1000 KVA annually, as a result, Brown Bros ends up paying for a huge amount of power that it doesn't use and which ends up as waste.

Jones Ltd, on the other hand, has a highly efficient operation with a POWER FACTOR of 0.90 it will be charged for only 555 KVA annually as a result of the reduced demand and lower energy losses.

IMPLICATIONS OF A LOW POWER FACTOR

Since 'Line Current' is reduced by increasing 'POWER FACTOR' other ancillary benefits to be gained by optimizing a facilities power factor are, better voltage regulation, harmonic reduction and released system capacity. powerMAXX 'Power Optimization Capacitor Banks' will help save you money each month on all of the above typically listed plant items electricity usage.

IMPORTANT

As yet, there is no Australian 'Power Audit Standard', which means that standards of measurement or lack thereof in the energy efficiency sector are often poor and based on little more than a 'misguided look' at your power bill, potential clients are urged to think carefully about how their energy saving requirement is going to be evaluated before they go ahead. Challenge your 'quote giver' to conduct a 'fully metered power audit analysis' that incorporates the six key inpute measurment factors as this data is the only means of proving that their conclusions are correct and statistically supported.

Don't settle on a few unconfirmed figures or a single graph that supposedly tells you that energy saving is simple and cheap... IT'S NOT!

 

"Improvement of Power Factor for Industrial Plant with Automatic Capacitor Bank"
WORLD ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY - VOLUME 32 AUGUST 2008

This paper is intended to uplift the technological standard of industrial plants, the overall power factor of modern industries is very poor because of inductive loads absorbing reactive power, this is especially so in industrial plants with variable load conditions from large inductive loads and its subsequent poor power factor.
These industries benefit most from automatic power optimizer capacitor banks, these units provide improved power factor, increased voltage level on the load and reduced electric utility bills.

Conclusion - If the power factor of the plant is low, it uses more power than it needs to do the work, poor power factor should be corrected as it substantially increases costs, capacitors generally are the most economical means to improve power factors.