What is power factor in an electrical power system?

Answer 1

In an alternating current system, the voltage and current may or may not rise and fall at the same time. In resistive circuits it does but the current in other cases may lead or lag the voltage.

For a single phase system

Power = Power Factor * V * I

The power factor is the cosine of the angle between V and I and is a maximum (1) in resistive circuits.

Answer 2

Throughout electrical engineering , the power factor associated with an AC electrical power system is described as the ratio in the real power flowing on the load , to the apparent power inside circuit, and is a dimensionless number inside closed interval of -1 to at least one, meaning that the voltage & current waveforms are certainly not in phase, reducing the instantaneous product in the two waveforms. Real power will be the capacity of the enterprise for performing work in a very particular time. Apparent power will be the product of the current and voltage in the circuit. Due to energy stored inside load and returned on the source, or due to your non-linear load that distorts the wave shape of the current drawn through the source, the apparent power are going to be greater than the true power. A negative power factor occurs if your device (which is commonly the load) yields power, which then flows back towards source, which is commonly considered the generator.

In the electric power system, a large quanity with a low electrical power factor draws more current over a load with a high power factor to the same amount of valuable power transferred. The higher currents improve the energy lost in your distribution system, and require larger wires and also other equipment. Because of the price of larger equipment along with wasted energy, electrical utilities will usually charge a better cost to industrial as well as commercial customers where you will find there's low power factor.

Linear loads with low power factor might be corrected with a unaggressive network of capacitors as well as inductors . Non-linear tons, such as rectifiers , distort the actual drawn from the technique. In such cases, active or passive power factor correction is known to counteract the distortion and boost the power factor. The devices for correction in the power factor may be at the central substation, spread out over the distribution system, or that are part of power-consuming equipment.