- #1
brstilson
- 3
- 0
Hi there,
I'm not an expert on electricity by a long shot but I do understand most of the basics (i.e. AC voltage follows a sine wave, etc. etc.). Anyway, I'm helping my company analyse the data we're gathering from our various utility meters and our electricity meters are giving us a reading in KVarH in addition to KWH, which we are recording but so far have have absolutely no idea exactly what it signifies. I did a little research on it today and so far what I've come up with is that the KVARH is basically the energy that is wasted starting an inductive load like a motor, and that the ratio between KVarH and KWh is what determines power factor.
What I'm not getting is that it doesn't seem to relate very well to the actual numbers we're getting. I'm just trying to understand how the two measurements relate to each other. For instance, on a given day we'll have 12,000 KVARH and 19,200 KWH. I guess I'd just like to understand a little better what that actually means. Is that good, bad, indifferent, etc.? Do I add the two numbers together in order to get my actual usage? Do I do something different?
I'm not an expert on electricity by a long shot but I do understand most of the basics (i.e. AC voltage follows a sine wave, etc. etc.). Anyway, I'm helping my company analyse the data we're gathering from our various utility meters and our electricity meters are giving us a reading in KVarH in addition to KWH, which we are recording but so far have have absolutely no idea exactly what it signifies. I did a little research on it today and so far what I've come up with is that the KVARH is basically the energy that is wasted starting an inductive load like a motor, and that the ratio between KVarH and KWh is what determines power factor.
What I'm not getting is that it doesn't seem to relate very well to the actual numbers we're getting. I'm just trying to understand how the two measurements relate to each other. For instance, on a given day we'll have 12,000 KVARH and 19,200 KWH. I guess I'd just like to understand a little better what that actually means. Is that good, bad, indifferent, etc.? Do I add the two numbers together in order to get my actual usage? Do I do something different?