Reactive Power: A Strange Concept?

[Eero]

Hi!

What is your opinion about this article:

"www.bme.hu/ptee2000/papers/fetea.pdf"[/URL]

 

[cabraham]

Much ado about nothing. Everything he covered, I already learned in my sophomore year of college, majoring in EE. Seriously, very seldom do I read a paper and not get something out of it. I've been practicing EE for 32 yrs, and I'm less than a year away from my doctorate. Yet, I always learn something new, albeit just a small amount, when reading a paper like this one.

This paper, however, taught me absolutely nothing I didn't already know. In a nutshell, this paper is sophomoric claptrap, building and reducing straw men.

In general, anytime somebody claims that the status quo belief/teaching on a particular topic is "myth, misconception, etc.", and here is the "real" answer, 9 times out of 10, or actually 99 times out of 100, they are not as smart as they think they are. Also, their "answer" is usually just a trivial and narrow interpretation of narrowly selected laws, or the "misconceptions" they refute are just straw men. These people are not as smart as they believe. Also, those whom they refute are not as incapable as they believe.

I just lost 10 minutes of my life reading and critiquing what basically is a worthless article. This paper belongs in circular file no. 13. What a piece of rubbish.

Claude

 

[Eero]

I am on the same frequency as you !

 

[Bob S]

Reactive power is an oxymoron, Where's the power? Use the term "power factor" instead. The only people who really care are the public utility power station operators, who see the extra current in their alternator stator windings because the power factor has not been corrected at the load.
Bob S
[added] The public utility has to provide a fixed amount of real power (kilowatts) to the user. If the user's power factor is low (meaning higher kVA), the utility has to provide more current to the user, which means more amps in the alternator, switch gear, and transmission lines, ultimately meaning more power loss and more water over the dam. So maybe reactive power is not an oxymoron in some cicumstances.
RS

 

[mheslep]

Reactive power is an oxymoron, Where's the power? Use the term "power factor" instead. The only people who really care are the public utility power station operators, who see the extra current in their alternator stator windings because the power factor has not been corrected at the load.
Bob S

Note that students will continue to see the term 'reactive power' though.

Also the large electrical users care about low power factors, as they invest in the corrective systems and pay the utilities for low power factor usage.