Power factor

[Taj bartlem]

Can someone explain power factor to me in as much detail as possible

 

[Martaine2005]

The answers to your questions are too easy to find on the WWW.

https://www.fluke.com/en-gb/learn/blog/power-quality/power-factor-formula

 

[Minder]

Not in detail, but in a simplistic way, one example would be where in a metred AC source where the components of a circuit are causing a phase shift between the peak AC voltage and the current, such as in a highly inductive load, you would be essentially be paying for energy that you were not making full use or taking advantage of.

 

[AnalogKid]

Power factor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Elapsed time: 5 seconds.

ak

 

[jonas123]

Can someone explain power factor to me in as much detail as possible

A simple way to think about power factor is the difference between the power you draw from the supply and the power that actually does useful work. Resistive loads like heaters are usually close to a power factor of 1, while motors and transformers often have lower power factors because current and voltage are out of phase. That's why larger installations sometimes use capacitor banks for power factor correction.

 

[Delta Prime]

It takes an electrical engineer to appreciate the complex power factor characteristics of Alternating Current.
Electronic equipment present either a resistive load, heaters and incandescent light bulbs or inductive load, transformers & motors.
By adding external reactive components, like inductors, to cancel out the effects of the load's reactance.This equal & opposite load brings the circuit's total impedance closer to its total resistance, making the impedance phase angle closer to zero.
Inductive loads are of concern because they use the magnetic properties of electricity.
The magnetic effect disrupts the smooth waveform of alternating current and voltage, causing the current to lag behind the voltage. Power Factor is a metric that expresses the degree of “disruption” in the alternating current.
An active PFC circuit , there are a voltage & a current loop.The voltage loop has very slow dynamics when changing the input conductance, actively balancing the input & output powers.The output voltage is compared to a reference voltage to obtain an error signal, which directly actuates on the current loop. The current loop has faster dynamics than the Voltage loop & is responsible for making the input current proportional to the voltage, correcting the power factor. Dynamic equilibrium.
You could just have noise current which would lower your (THD) Total Harmonic Distortion.
You have to know the equipment in your facility
You can measure and see the waveform itself with an oscilloscope.
If the current waveform has considerable
distortion relative to a sine wave and therefore the power factor drop well below 1.0.To bring the power factor close to1.It is necessary to reduce harmonic current.

https://www.electronics-lab.com/forums/threads/leading-power-factor-correction-problem.300940/post-1857412

Can someone explain power factor to me in as much detail as possible