Hi,

I'm working as an electrical technician in a medium size factory.
On the transformation station (sorry, I don't the technical term is english) there are two capacitor batteries (see attached photo). The weekly power factor is always between 0.98 and 1.00.

However, the display shows me that the circuit is capacitive. What are the pros/cons or what is the main cause of having a capacitive circuit instead of a inductive one?

Thanks in advance.

Best regards.

 

the display shows me that the circuit is capacitive. What are the pros/cons or what is the main cause of having a capacitive circuit instead of a inductive one?

Correcting the power factor reduces the amps in the power line, thus reducing power losses due to heating the wire with amps which do not deliver real power. The capacitance is placed in parallel with the load so it is easily adjustable and is not in series with the load so does not interfere with the amps to the load. An inductor would need to be in series with the load. The inductor would need to carry all the current to the load while capacitors only carry the current to themselves, the error current.

 

Most loads ,specially industrial ones (motors, fluro lights etc) are inductive and have lower power factors. As #12 said, this results in the supply system having to provide extra amps to the inductive reactance(which is not "real" power).By adding capacitors of suitable rating this will raise the power factor(capacitive reactance helps to "cancel"out the inductive reactance) and reduces the current taken from the supply. Generally a power factor just below 1 is preferable. At power factor of 1 capacitive and inductive reactance are equal(resonance) and can result in high voltages across capacitor and inductor(depends on circuit Q).