I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, so if I should post somewhere else, someone please let me know.
I'm having a small disagreement with a co-worker. He says that there are situations where power factor can be greater than 1 (for ex. if you have a large capacitive load like a large unloaded UPS system). He also tells me that there are some high efficiency motors with 1+ power factors. How is this possible? I thought that power factor could never be more than 1. I also understand that PF is the cosine of the angle between the current and voltage, and therefore can't have a value greater than 1. So, as far as I can tell, I'm right. The math doesn't lie. But am I wrong?
I've asked this question to a couple of electricians who I thought would know the answer, and they all said they "think" it "might" be possible to have a PF slightly over 1. It seems there are a lot of trades people out there with a vague understanding of power factor...myself included.
Thanks.
I'm having a small disagreement with a co-worker. He says that there are situations where power factor can be greater than 1 (for ex. if you have a large capacitive load like a large unloaded UPS system). He also tells me that there are some high efficiency motors with 1+ power factors. How is this possible? I thought that power factor could never be more than 1. I also understand that PF is the cosine of the angle between the current and voltage, and therefore can't have a value greater than 1. So, as far as I can tell, I'm right. The math doesn't lie. But am I wrong?
I've asked this question to a couple of electricians who I thought would know the answer, and they all said they "think" it "might" be possible to have a PF slightly over 1. It seems there are a lot of trades people out there with a vague understanding of power factor...myself included.
Thanks.