Hello there,
What are the advantages/disadvantages of putting PF correction capacitors at the main substation of a plant, as opposed to smaller ones in each electrical room?
I'm working on an expansion at a mine site, and while the utility doesn't charge for kVARS (only straight kW), the plant engineer is pushing for capacitors in each electrical room, stating "if we put them at the substation, only the utility gets the benefit. If we put them in each electrical room we'll get substantially less cable and transformer losses on the feeders to each room." From this I have 2 questions..
1) Are the savings in cable losses really that much from say a PF of 0.7 compared to 0.95? and
2) If we put the capacitors at the main sub, will all the downstream feeders still run at a low PF? So only upstream devices get the benefit of power factor correction?
Typically we only put them at the substation, but I think this is mainly to save on utility penalties.
Thanks very much for the help
What are the advantages/disadvantages of putting PF correction capacitors at the main substation of a plant, as opposed to smaller ones in each electrical room?
I'm working on an expansion at a mine site, and while the utility doesn't charge for kVARS (only straight kW), the plant engineer is pushing for capacitors in each electrical room, stating "if we put them at the substation, only the utility gets the benefit. If we put them in each electrical room we'll get substantially less cable and transformer losses on the feeders to each room." From this I have 2 questions..
1) Are the savings in cable losses really that much from say a PF of 0.7 compared to 0.95? and
2) If we put the capacitors at the main sub, will all the downstream feeders still run at a low PF? So only upstream devices get the benefit of power factor correction?
Typically we only put them at the substation, but I think this is mainly to save on utility penalties.
Thanks very much for the help