Having issues with your power solution?
Need better Power Quality and Energy Efficiency?
There are many factors that can negatively impact on the power supply, and this can cause an increase in energy drawn from the network to compensate for these issues, which in turn increases energy costs and could reduce the life expectancy of some parts.
How do you solve these problems?
Reactive Power is one of the main causes in poor energy efficiency as it causes “phase shift” between the current and voltage. What this means is that the amount of current required increases to provide the same amount of “active power”, this then increases energy costs. What can cause this reactive power and “phase shift”? well anything, for the most part everybody is affected by it, however in some situations your power factor may not be as impacted so is negligible (such as your home) but in settings such as factories, hospitals and even offices (depending on its size) will have reactive power issues that need addressing. To help reduce the “phase shift” impact on the network capacitors and capacitor banks can be installed depending on the severity of the situation.
Harmonics in the power supply, the effect it has on the power quality is potentially more damaging than reactive power as it distorts the sinewave. This will incur additional losses like reactive power causing increased energy costs however it can cause heating in power cables, audible noise (in transformers) and makes metering inconsistent as it throws errors. The impact on equipment can be detrimental as it reduces the efficiency and makes shutdown processes more costly and harmonics in the power network can cause disruption to electronic equipment like computers and telephones. Harmonics can be corrected by either passive filtering with a combination of capacitors and reactors or by introducing the exact opposite to the harmonics in the network which is active filtering.
The biggest benefits to correcting these issues are obviously economical however it does help reduce the impact on the environment, but for benefits you directly see will be saving on costs for reactive power, savings through reduced “active power” and reduction in investment costs (increased machinery life spans, decrease in required maintenance), as an added benefit the return on investment is typically below 18 months!
Where to get these amazing solutions?
TDK (EPCOS) provide a full range of PFC capacitors and Capacitor banks that can be used to correct the reactive power as well as units specially designed for active harmonic filtering and power optimisation.