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Unit 2 - Power Factor

The document discusses power factor, its significance, causes of low power factor, and disadvantages of low power factor. Power factor is defined as the ratio of true power to apparent power. A higher power factor indicates more effective utilization of power. Inductive loads, power variations, and harmonics can cause low power factor. Low power factor requires higher current and results in increased costs, lower efficiency, and poorer voltage regulation.

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Paras Sundriyal
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40 views8 pages

Unit 2 - Power Factor

The document discusses power factor, its significance, causes of low power factor, and disadvantages of low power factor. Power factor is defined as the ratio of true power to apparent power. A higher power factor indicates more effective utilization of power. Inductive loads, power variations, and harmonics can cause low power factor. Low power factor requires higher current and results in increased costs, lower efficiency, and poorer voltage regulation.

Uploaded by

Paras Sundriyal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Basic Electrical Engineering

(TEE 101)

POWER FACTOR
Content

This lecture covers:

Power Factor and its


significance
Low Power Factor and its
cause
power factor
Power Factor
or: It is defined as the ratio of true power (active power) to the apparent power (Volt-amperes). It is mathematically expr

Power factor = cos

The active power is the real power which is absorbed in an AC circuit, whereas volt-amperes is the apparent power w

Figure 1: Power Triangle


Significance of Power Factor

The apparent power drawn by a circuit has two components viz. (i) true power and (ii) reactive power.

True power component should be as large as possible because it is this component which does useful work in the circuit. This
is possible only if the reactive power component is small.
As seen from the power triangle in Fig. 1, the smaller the phase angle φ (i.e. greater the p.f. cosφ), the smaller is the reactive
power component.

Thus when φ = 0° (i.e. cos φ = 1), the reactive power component is zero and the true power is equal to the apparent power.

That means the whole of apparent power drawn by the circuit is being utilised by it.

Thus power factor of a circuit is a measure of its effectiveness in utilizing the apparent power drawn by it.

The greater the power factor of a circuit, the greater is its ability to utilise the apparent power.

Thus 0·5 p.f. (i.e. 50% p.f.) of a circuit means that it will utilize only 50% of the apparent power whereas 0·8 p.f. would mean
80% utilization of apparent power.

For this reason, we wish that the power factor of the circuit to be as near to 1 as possible.
Low Power Factor and it’s causes

Power factor is a way to find out how effectively you are using your electrical power.
A high-power factor indicates effective utilization of electrical power, whereas low power factor signifies inefficient use of
electrical power.
The device is considered to be very efficient if the power factor is close to 1.
If the reactive power increases beyond a threshold, the system becomes unstable and tends to draw more current from
the source, or essentially a low power factor.

Reasons for low power factor


Inductive loading Variations in power loading Harmonic currents Transformers
Disadvantages of Low Power Factor

The undesirable effect of operating a low load at a low power factor is due to the large current required for a low pow

The important disadvantages of low power factor are:

• Higher current is required by the equipment, due to which the economic cost of the equipment is
increased.
• At low power factor, the current is high which gives rise to high copper losses in the system and
therefore the efficiency of the system is reduced.
• Higher current produced a large voltage drop in the apparatus. This results in the poor voltage regulation.
Since both the capital and running cost are increased, the operation of the system at low power factor (whether it is l
Thank You

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