Rectifiying power factor

Proposed Practical Works
• studying of an industrial air extraction installation: Current of branches – power of the transport line with and without power factor correction – Active and reactive power in the branches – Fresnel diagrams
• Study of the pure inductance of a plant in working in order to determine the capacitor bank necessary. Role of automatic compensation
• Study of resonance, max / min current

It consists of three branches:
• source branch, S, representing the energy supplied by the electricity mains (Network)
• plant branch, L , symbolizing a plant's energy consumption
• plant branch, C, including the padding condensers (integrated in the model and connected using jumper wires)
Each branch is equipped with the same measuring instruments:
• ammeter
• wattmeter, measuring active energy
• Power factor meter, measuring the power factor
• varmeter, measuring reactive energy
Students are thus able to compare four electrical variables in the three branches at the same time. They will observe (surprisingly?) that the source current value in the mains network branch may be much lower than the value in the plant branches. That source reactive energy is close to zero when power factor is around 1, whereas plant reactive energy is at maximum value. The model shows the impact of a power factor regulator on the cost per kWh transmitted and the resulting electricity bill.