We have this new power quality meter that give us power factor. In one of our buildings we had a power factor of 30%. This is not good obviously. What would you recoment me looking into to fix the problem? I was told that this would produce a lot of heat. How would it do that?
Low power factor
- Thread starter JdoubleU
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brian john
Senior Member
- Location
- Kilmarnock, Va
- Occupation
- Retired after 52 years in the trade.
What type of loads?
SERIOUSLY, check how you hooked up your meter. I'd bet you have the connections wrong.
mivey
Senior Member
Or very little load.
mivey
Senior Member
You are pushing current up and down the line to supply the real load (the part that contributes to the 30%) and the reactive load (the remainder). The reactive load is requiring extra current be pushed around that is doing no real work.
As for extra heat, the extra current generates heat in the conductor because of resistive losses. This extra current back to the source can be reduced by providing a local bucket for temporary storage of the energy that would normally get pushed back and forth to the source bucket. The local bucket is normally a local capacitor.
BTW: 30% is unusually low (but not unheard of) so do like Brian suggested and double-check the data.
StephenSDH
Senior Member
- Location
- Allentown, PA
Doesn't mean there is anything wrong. This is normal if your load is mostly unloaded motors.
mivey
Senior Member
And discussed at some length here:
http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=116038&highlight=power+factor
ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
So what are your readings now?
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