Is the powerfactor in a college campus building usually lagging or leading. I just want to make sure that the CTs for the meters are installed correctly. Most of the buildings we have on campus show a lagging powerfactor. I would have guest that they would have been leading. It seem to me that most of our buildings have more capacitive loads.
powerfactor
- Thread starter JdoubleU
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StephenSDH
Senior Member
- Location
- Allentown, PA
You should see a lagging power factor from induction motors, unless you have fixed capacitor banks with low loads.
- Location
- Lockport, IL
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- Semi-Retired Electrical Engineer
Motors and fluorescent lights are common inductive loads. I do not know of any common capacitive loads. I would never expect any building to have a leading power factor.
I thought florescent lights were capacitive loads.
Ok i get it. I don't know why I thought Florescent lighting was a capacitive load. What would be an example of a capacitive load.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
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- EC
power factor correction capacitors.
StephenSDH
Senior Member
- Location
- Allentown, PA
Yes and No. VFDs and Florescent lighting have a capacitor internally to hold charge. So they are a capacitive load, but they then also have a inductive choke to reduce harmonics. Because they are a significantly choked capacitor they having a Power Factor of close to unity.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
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- EC
Do these capacitors installed within the DC circuit of those types of equipment actually introduce capacitive reactance to the AC system? I would think they do not. They are just there to smooth out the rectified DC wave to make it less of a wave and more of a true DC. They are not charging and then doing a complete discharge and recharge of opposite polarity like a capacitor on an AC circuit, just acting as a surge tank for the electrons.
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