What is Power Factor?
Power Factor is a ratio of actual electrical power and a measure of the effectiveness of the electrical performance of your equipment.
What is a good Power Factor?
A Power Factor of more than 90%.
What does low Power Factor do?
Dramatically increases the cost of your electricity.
What are the advantages of having a good power factor?
What might the average Return On Investment look like?
Energy bill savings anywhere from 15%-30% and possibly more.
Therefore a quick return on investment and long-term savings that are realized from installing capacitor systems to improve power factor.
Improving the power factor will reduce operating cost by eliminating or deferring the need for new equipment, help existing equipment last longer.
The advantage of Power Factor Correction Equipment:
Improving the power factor will reduce operating cost by eliminating or deferring the need for new equipment, help existing equipment last longer, and make future expansions less costly. Also, lower rating sized equipment can be used, saving unnecessary capital expense.
All this is in addition to a quick return on investment and long-term savings that are realized from installing capacitor systems to improve power factor.
From the utility company’s point of view, raising the average operating power factor of the entire grid network could reduce cost from inefficiencies in the network, increase generation and distribution potential and reduce demand on the grid.
The utility can save hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fuel (and produce fewer emissions), have more transformers available and reduce the likelihood of building new power plants and their support systems.
For this reason, many utility companies charge a power factor penalty so they can recover the additional costs incurred from supporting an inefficient system.
What is Energy Management?
Energy management is the assessment, planning, and execution of a strategy to maintain or improve the quality and efficiency of energy being consumed by business. It is critical to saving energy and reducing costs for an organization.
So what is power quality?
Power quality refers to the ability of electrical equipment to consume the energy being supplied to it. A number of power quality issues including electrical harmonics, poor power factor, and voltage instability impact on the efficiency of electrical equipment.
This has a number of consequences including:
It is therefore critical that power quality is assessed as part of an energy management strategy, and that energy management is an important consideration for any business.