When it comes to reducing the power demands of the your building, one of the easiest ways to do it is to increase the load carrying capabilities of the existing circuits in your system while reducing power system losses. This can be done through a process known as power factor reduction. Here’s what you need to know about power factor reduction.
1. REDUCED DEMAND CHARGES
When the local utility company calculates what you owe, they do so by charging for the maximum metered demand which is measured by the highest registered demand in kilowatts. It can also be calculated by the percentage of the highest registered demand in KVA. The utility company will choose the method that produces the highest revenue. By decreasing your power factor through power factor correction, you have the ability to significantly decrease your KW demand and therefore lowers your overall electric bill dramatically.
2. INCREASED LOAD CARRYING CAPABILITIES IN EXISTING CIRCUITS
There is a principle that is fairly well known throughout the electric community that when talking about a given loan, loads that draw reactive power also demand reactive current. By introducing power factor correction capacitors into your existing wiring, near the inductive loads, you can reduce the current that is being carried by each individual circuit. This reduced current flow that is resultant from having an improved power factor will allow your circuits to be able to carry new loads, allowing you to skip the expense of a costly upgrade to your wiring.
3. IMPROVED VOLTAGE
By decreasing your power factor, you increase the current flow for each load. As the line current increases, the voltage inside the conductor increases, which leads to a lower voltage being delivered to your equipment. By improving your power factor, you can increase the amount of power that reaches your equipment, thus increasing performance.
4. REDUCED POWER SYSTEM LOSSES
While most engineers will argue that the small amount of savings you will realize from reducing conductor loss is hardly worth the cost and effort to install capacitors in your circuits, it is just an added benefit to the many others that these devices offer.
5. REDUCED CARBON FOOTPRINT
And, last but not least, you can effectively reduce your company’s carbon footprint by reducing your building’s power demand through power factor correction. Not only is this the responsible thing to do, it is also an incredibly effective marketing strategy that you can employ to attract more customers. By reducing your demand on power supplied by the grid, you lower the amount of carbon that is produced.
In order to take advantage of all of these benefits, you need to consider purchasing power factor meters offered by Aim Dynamics. These meters will help you measure where your power factor is today and how dramatically it is reduced through the installation of power factor capacitors. Visit Aim Dynamics and browse through their vast selection of power factor meters and take the first step in becoming more power conscious as well as energy efficient today.