Economic Impact of Low Power Factor on Institutions: a Case Study of Assosa University Building

Abstract

Power factor is a measure of how efficiently electric power is consumed. It is the result of phase difference between voltage and current at different stages of power system. It’s the ratio of active power or useful power to apparent power. The apparent power consists of both the active power and reactive power. If the reactive power increase in a power system, the power factor becomes low. Low power factor can affect the power system quality and the consumer to suffer in paying additional penalty charge for utility if it drops below the predetermined threshold amount. In this study, the bill data record indicates there was low power factor in each month from different energy meter. The minimum or poor power factor relative to other energy meters record was 0.124035 and its power factor charge was 12,011.58 ETB which is approximately equivalent to 214.11USD. The total power factor charge for only recorded data for four months was 71,537.33ETB (1,275.17USD). The institution is paying unwanted charge that can be improved by using power factor correction capacitor. The reactive power (kVAR) required to correct the power factor to 0.9 have been computed in this paper. The money expended for low power factor will be saved and the system’s power quality increase as well.