Power Factor

[Electriceel]

Wondering what would be some things to look for when a very small utility has a system power factor of .8 during the hrs. of 2-4a.m?
There are no commercial businesses that run during the night, basically the entire load is residential homes.

[loodvig]

Wondering what would be some things to look for when a very small utility has a system power factor of .8 during the hrs. of 2-4a.m?
There are no commercial businesses that run during the night, basically the entire load is residential homes.

Do you have cap banks with time clocks? Are the clocks set right?

[rcdallas]

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[hotwiretamer]

Coop I worked at had fixed capacitor banks...he's saying small utility, so I wonder if they even have controls on theirs.

How are ya finding that your power factor is .8 at night? I mean what method are you using to determine this?

Question for you smarter folks. On time controls is there not a battery in the control? Or is it just one of them things that comes and goes with 2011 lack of maintenance?

The old time clocks we use to use had no battery back up. They were just like a timer on a sprinkler system, with the scew on, adjustable on and off tabs. Once a year in the spring and once a year at the beginning of winter we would go out with a list from engineering and readjust and repair.

In the last 5 or 6 years we have done away with all those old timers.

[loodvig]

The old time clocks we use to use had no battery back up. They were just like a timer on a sprinkler system, with the scew on, adjustable on and off tabs. Once a year in the spring and once a year at the beginning of winter we would go out with a list from engineering and readjust and repair.

In the last 5 or 6 years we have done away with all those old timers.

Yes that's the type we had with no battery. They plug into a regular 3 wire meeter socket. But our clocks were always off for one reason or other.

[jozmo]

Do you have a leading power factor ? This could happen with fixed cap banks when the inductive load is not present .

[Electriceel]

I work for the neighboring utility they came to me for advice and I couldn't give them any so was hoping for some input, the utility is very small, they currently have no capacitors, probably less than 300 meters.
The power factor information came from their power supplier.

I work for a large enough utility we have numerous capacitor banks but at this time we have no timers or controls on any of them and we leave them on line year around.

[rcdallas]

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[topgroove]

I wonder if they have a sewer lift station in that residential neighborhood.

Sometimes if you have a large motor running with no load on it your power factor goes to crap. Alot of utilities will charge their customers a surcharge if their power factor falls below 90%