Power Factor and Resonance

Thread Starter

amilton542

Joined Nov 13, 2010
497
I'm always told you should strive for unity power factor, but unity p.f. implies the circuit is at resonance. I don't know how this can be a good thing in power engineering. There is a tendency for high circulating currents to be established, that of which will increase the active power demand because the copper losses equate to I_r.m.s.^2 x R.

Another thing, even if the circuit is at resonance I'm told it only consumes real power. Well this can't be entirely true because the inductors and cap's still need to be charged to some degree in order to feed off one another, so there is reactive power in the circuit even at resonance.
 

Thread Starter

amilton542

Joined Nov 13, 2010
497
Damn! Positive reactive power, negative reactive power. Watch out for your plus and minuses folks, they will ALWAYS catch you out.
 

Thread Starter

amilton542

Joined Nov 13, 2010
497
@ Bill Marsden

I've gone away thinking about what you've said, but for the two reactive powers to cancel implies the circuit to be in a sinusoidal steady state condition.

So is it safe to say, resonance and unity power factor only exists in steady state?
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
The initial condition is the circuit is at resonance. So again, it would be assumed the signal is a steady state sin wave where the reactance of both components are equal.

Want to try a little math project I found interesting? Calculate the voltage across the capacitor or inductor in a series LC circuit at resonance. It is counter intuitive.
 

crutschow

Joined Mar 14, 2008
34,280
I'm always told you should strive for unity power factor, but unity p.f. implies the circuit is at resonance. I don't know how this can be a good thing in power engineering. There is a tendency for high circulating currents to be established, that of which will increase the active power demand because the copper losses equate to I_r.m.s.^2 x R.
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Yes correcting the P.F. to unity generates a circulating reactive current in the power line, but that reactive current is already there from the reactive load. Correcting it doesn't increase this reactive current. Ideally the correction is done close to the reactive load to minimize the distance that the reactive current must flow, so that it doesn't have to go all the way back to the generator.
 
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