TITLE:
Economic Improvement of Power Factor Correction: A Case Study
AUTHORS:
Kassem Wahab, Mohamad Rahal, Roger Achkar
KEYWORDS:
Power Factor, Reactive Power, kVAR, Inductive, Apparent Power, Active Power
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Power and Energy Engineering,
Vol.9 No.6,
June
8,
2021
ABSTRACT: Power factor (PF) is simply an expression of energy
efficiency, which is always expressed in terms of percentage. Technically, PF
is a ratio of real power in Kilowatts to the apparent power, which is always
expressed in kilovolts amperes. In AC power analysis, power is always expressed
in three ways, the real power (P),
reactive power (Q),
and the apparent power (S).
The real power is the work useful power, while the reactive power is the wasted
power in the 3-phase AC system, and the apparent power is the vectorial sum of
the two powers. The increase of reactive power will reduce the presence of real
power, thus making the power to be more expensive. In this paper, we will
analyze the importance of improving the power factor by applying a bank of
capacitors to a case study in Lebanon. Analysis of the economic improvement in
the application of power factor correction is carried out. The result shows a
reduction of 12 percent in the total cost.