Blog

Reactive Power and Power factor correction is a necessity in industrial power supply, especially when the inductive load is high. While excess reactive power does have a negative effect on the power factor, it still plays a valuable role. On the other hand, maintaining a higher power factor level through power factor correction is also important to avoid undesirable consequences.

In this post, we’ll cover what is reactive power and power factor correction and why they’re both essential in your power supply system.

Reactive Power and its Importance:

Reactive power plays a vital role in the industrial power supply while not utilized for actual work. It is used to generate electromagnetic fields for the operation of inductive loads such as motors, transformers, and transmission lines.

Moreover, reactive power also provides the function of regulating voltage levels in transmission lines, ensuring a smooth supply of real power. This voltage control is crucial for maintaining efficiency, reducing the risk of voltage collapse, and preventing overheating and damage to generators and motors.

Reactive Power and its Effect on Power Factor

While reactive power plays a significant role in electrical systems, it also lowers the overall power factor. As more energy is “lost” or “wasted” as reactive power. The power factor levels go down, as the total apparent power is not completely put to actual use.

With more current wasted as reactive load, there is excess demand from the utility for real use. This can lead to maximum demand penalty and power factor surcharges from the utility and increase the risk of voltage fluctuations and line losses.

Power Factor Correction (PFC) and its Importance

Power Factor Correction (PFC) involves taking steps to improve the power factor and the overall energy efficiency. This is done by compensating for the reactive load by generating reactive power locally within the system, instead of demanding from the utility.

There are two PFC techniques: passive power factor correction and active power factor correction. As the name suggests, passive power factor correction uses passive components like a pi filter or valley-fill PFC. It consists of capacitors or inductors, to control harmonic currents in the power supply. On the other hand, active power factor correction uses active electronic circuits with feedback and switching elements (like MOSFET and IGBT) to automatically correct voltage. 

Power Factor Correction is important because it ensures:

• Improved Efficiency in Energy Use.
• Increased Availability of Power due to higher Load Carrying Capacity.
• Reduced Voltage Fluctuations.
• Reduced Power Demand from Utility.
• More Savings on the Electricity Bills.
• Lowered Risk of Penalties.

Conclusion

While reactive power does not do actual work, it is still required to control voltage and operate inductive loads. At the same time, reducing reactive power levels is also necessary to keep the power factor high. In such scenarios, PFC helps compensate for reactive load while maintaining a good power factor. This is how both reactive power and power factor correction play an important role in the stability of industrial power systems. Reach out to professionals to get a better insight into it. Contact Power Matrix Solutions Today.