The capacitor bank is an interconnection of several capacitors, in series or parallel, based on design requirements and are usually applied in power factor correction or reactive power compensation.
Besides the active power, we have in an electrical system, the reactive power that is mainly originated from the inductive charge connected to the system (electromagnetic circuits of electric motors, electric transformers, inductance of transmission and distribution grids, induction furnaces, fluorescent lighting, etc). The reactive load is not actually consumed, it circulates between the charge and the generating station overcharging the system. An analogy that can perfectly represent this issue is a beer glass, the beer itself would be the active power, while the foam would be the reactive power.
The way found to compensate for the reactive power generated by inductive charges is to install capacitor banks in the power grid that alter the characteristic of the charge by increasing the power factor and reducing the reactive power circulating in the grid.
The Power Factor (PF) is the vector sum between Active and Reactive Power, in general, the closer the power factor is to 1, the smaller the system's reactive energy will be. Therefore, if we have a power factor equal to 1 we have a purely resistive charge consuming only active power.
The Capacitor Banks are divided into fixed, for individual equipment, semi-automatic to correct the reactive energy according to a desired programming, automatic when it corrects the reactive energy automatically according to the demand and desynchronized for electrical installation with high harmonic distortion index (DHT).
Benefits of implementing a VA Engenharia Capacitor Bank:
- Cost Reduction;
- Voltage Improvement;
- Loss Reductiong in the Power System;
- Increased Charge Capacity.