NOTE: Restrictions are in place to limit access to one or more of the files associated with this item. Authorized users must log in to gain access. Non-authorized users do not have access to these files.
Visit the Energy Systems Laboratory Homepage.
Optimizing Power Factor Correction
Date
1986-06Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The optimal investment for power factor
correcting capacitors for Kansas Power and Light
Company large power contract customers is studied.
Since the billing capacity is determined by
dividing the real demand by the power factor (the
minimum billing capacity is based on 80 percent of
the summer peak billing capacity) and the billing
capacity is used to determine the number of
kilowatt-hours billed at each pricing tier, the
power factor affects both the demand and the energy
charge. There is almost no information available
in the literature concerning recommended power
factor corrections for this situation. The general
advice commonly given in the past has been that
power factor should be corrected to above 0.9 if it
is below that value to begin with, but that does
not take into account the facts of the situation
studied here. Calculations relevant to a
commercial consumer of electricity were made for
demands of 200, 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200, and 6,400
kW and monthly energy consumption periods of 100,
150, 200, 300, 400, and 500 hours for several
capacitor purchase and installation costs. The
results are displayed in a series of graphs that
enable annual cost savings and payback periods to
be readily determined over a range of commonly
encountered parameter values. It is found that it
is often economically advantageous to correct a
power factor to near unity.
Collections
Citation
Phillips, R. K.; Burmeister, L. C. (1986). Optimizing Power Factor Correction. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /93098.