Power Factor: What is it?

The power factor is a relationship between active power and reactive power. It indicates the efficiency with which energy is being used. A high power factor indicates a high efficiency and conversely a low power factor indicates low efficiency. A low power factor indicates that you are not making full use of energy, and the solution to fix is the installation of Capacitor Bank, and they may create conditions for resonance. Under these conditions, the harmonics generated by nonlinear devices can be amplified to absurd values and option is the use of filter discord to correct these harmonics.

Electrical installations are mostly inductive loads. The main feature of inductive loads is that they require an electromagnetic field to operate. Therefore, they consume two types of electrical power: Active power (kW) to do the job of generating heat, light, motion, etc. and Reactive power (kVAr) to maintain the electromagnetic field, and this does not produce useful work, but circulates between the generator and the load, requiring the generator and distribution system of electricity a day extra. The active power and reactive power together make up apparent power (kVA). When the apparent power is greater than the active power, the licensee must provide, in addition to the useful current (active), a reactive current.

Where:

Active Power (KW): Power actually spends on devices that offer resistance in the resistive circuit voltage walks in phase with the current (VI) = 0 °, and is expressed in kW.

Reactive Power (KVAR): Power used to create magnetic fields, necessary for the operation of industrial equipment (motors, transformers, reactors, etc..), Its value being expressed in Kvar in inductive circuit the voltage goes early current (VI ) = 90.

Apparent power (KVA): the vector sum of active and reactive power, that is, the total power absorbed by the plant.

Power factor (i-fator05) is the ratio of active power and apparent power.

In circuits of alternating current (AC) purely resistive, the waves of voltage and electric current are in phase, ie, changing their polarity at the same instant in each cycle. Where reactive loads are present, such as capacitors and inductors or capacitors, energy storage in the loads results in a phase difference between waves of voltage and current. Since this stored energy returns to the source and produces no useful work, a circuit with low power factor will have higher electrical currents for the same work than a circuit with high power factor.