What does the power factor correction do?

Question

thank you ...

Answer 1

Say you have a plant like an industrial plant it may have some big motors or maybe some machinery ..and lots of light...The engineer calculates the load based on 100% operation all the time...the electric company comes in during the opening few weeks and puts an amp-meter on the system...when the plant comes online it has a startup of say 500amps ..but for only a second or two ..just long enough for the electric company to take a snapshot of the demand factor..Now in comes the plant engineer reviewing the bill he sees this as a large bill( after inrush the plant levels off at 200AMPS) and adds into the system large power  factor correcting capacitars ( they are measured in Kvars..kilovolts-amps-resistive  and they store a very large charge ..the next time the plant is monitored the caps even out the surge by inserting the stored power into the system ...this results in a much lower bill....so much that the engineer gets a raise and vacations in Bermuda.(pipe dream)..anyway the power factor correction balances the actual power being used against what the apparent power being used is...Clear as mud huh..Well thats what its about...Have a good one... from the E...

Answer 2

open's the brain!

Answer 3

I may be wrong but I thought it makes sure that the amps follow the voltage in a proper lagging phase and in a true sign wave after it is screwed up by loads such as motors.

Answer 4

The power factor correction  corrects for the difference between actual power used (Amps squared x resistance) and the apparent power (volts x amps) furnished by the supplier. This difference is caused by a reactive element in the load which causes a phase shift between voltage and current. The amount of the phase shift is determined by the amount of reactance in the load.

If the reactive element in the load is inductive which is usually the case then it may be corrected by adding capacitive reactance. When the capacitive reactance equals the inductive reactance then the phase angle between voltage and current is zero and the power factor is one. When the power factor is one then (load amps squared) x (load resistance) = (input volts) x (input amps) and thus you are not charged for power that you did not use.