Benefits of Power Factor Correction

Find out how power factor correction can bring down operation and production costs, decrease your carbon footprint, and improve your power consumption and quality. 

Reduces Power Utility Costs:

Power companies charge electricity based on apparent power consumption. If your site has a bad power factor, your apparent power will be significantly higher than the actual power your site is consuming. This means your power consumption charge will be higher than it needs to be. Furthermore, power companies view poor power factors as a waste of energy that they could be selling elsewhere, and they are beginning to charge kVAr/h rates on top of their electricity bills. Yes, this means they are charging you for power, and then penalising you for taking that power! Some of these charges can be upwards of 45% of your total power bill. 

Increases Loads on Circuits

Installing a Power Factor Correction Unit (PFCU) can correct your power factor up to .99. In other words, every kilowatt of power you draw from the grid is being utilized. For example, if you have a factory with an 800A incoming supply, running at 798A, and a poor power factor, you may only be actually using 600A of that power, with the rest wasted as reactive power. As a result of improving your power factor, your grid demand is reduced to 600A. This provides you with an additional 200A of spare capacity, which can be used to update your equipment or to add EV charging stations. 

Eco-Freindly Power Consumption

When every kilowatt of power you draw from the grid is used, you will reduce your power consumption and improve your energy efficiency scores. 

Improves Power Quality

As a motor or pump comes under load, its current draw increases. The worse the power factor, the steeper the current increase. As the current increases, the voltage drop in the conductor increases, which causes a lower voltage supply to the plant or equipment. Increasing the power factor reduces the voltage drop in the conductor, improving the voltage at the equipment in response to load changes. 

Lengthens Equipment Lifetime

By correcting the power factor, current draws will be lowered and voltage stability will be improved. This means electrical components will not have to work as hard or have the same heating issues. This will result in longer component life and reduced mechanical wear.