Application of Capacitor

[adavey]

I understand (I think) that capacitors are used in electrical installations to correct the PF.

Questions:
Where is this usually applied (commercial and/or industrial applications)??

What would be the effects of a low PF ?????

 

[bdarnell]

Re: Application of Capacitor

Where is this usually applied (commercial and/or industrial applications)??

Yes.

What would be the effects of a low PF ?????

Higher utility bills, possible PF penalites from the POCO

 

[charlie b]

Re: Application of Capacitor

What would be the effects of a low PF ?????

Also lost energy (i.e., higher current and resulting I^2R losses in the cables), and a lower voltage available to the loads.

 

[Zifkwong]

Capacitors are also used for voltage support.

To limit I2R losses they should be installed as close to the load as possible.

 

[adavey]

thank you.

 

[electricman2]

Another thing I have wondered about capacitors. I have seen them rated in KVAR or something like that. How does this compare to farads or microfarads? :?:

 

[charlie b]

First you transform farads to ohms, then transform ohms to VARS. The impedance of a capacitor is 1 divided by (2 times PI times f times C), where "f" is the frequency and "C" is the capacitance. The related reactive power (VARS) is equal to voltage squared divided by impedance.

 

[spsnyder]

I had a professor say that the large northeastern power outage was caused in part by a lack of reactive power not real power. He said that the supply of real power was adequite but that the generators couldn't keep up with the reactive power requirements and the system collapsed as a result (cascading effect)

What does everyone think of that statement?

Thanks.

 

[charlie b]

I believe it. After all, if you have the money to buy something, but don't have the money to pay the tax, you are not going to get the item. :lol:

 

[electricman2]

Thanks Charlie