CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the review of related literature and studies.

2.2 Review of Related Studies

Thirst for energy sources is unquenchable, but we hardly realize that

we are wasting a part of energy every day due to lagging power factor. The

researcher implement a device to prevent this kind of situation by improving

the power factor. There are many methods of improving a power factor have

been proposed with the growth of technological revolution. This thesis

describes the design and development of power factor improvement with

microcontroller. The improvement method in this device is described by

synchronous condenser instead of capacitor bank because of long life,

achieve step less power factor by changing the magnitude of current with

change in excitation, faults in synchronous condenser can be removed

easily, and the motor windings offer higher thermal stability for higher short

circuit currents. But the disadvantages of this method is that the

maintenance cost is high due to rotating component, produces noise, there

are losses in the motor, at low power rating the cost is high compared to

static capacitor method, and it needs extra excitation equipment to

function. This method involves continuous measurement and monitoring

the power factor and generation of required control signal from

microcontroller for controlling the DC excitation of synchronous condenser

so as to improve power factor (Rosni Sayed, A.H.M. Iftekharul Ferdous &

Md. Asaduzzman Shobug, 2015).

People are not aware of energy wastage thus having poor power factor is

often overlooked. Power factor measures how efficient a system is and is an

important factor in improving a good quality of electricity. A poor power

factor resulting from an increasing use of inductive loads creates high

amount of current that may damage wire cables, voltage fluctuation due to

voltage drop and several losses are greatly ignored. A power factor correction

unit would allow the system to restore its power factor close to unity to

minimize losses and wastage. The advantages or benefits of power factor

correction include reduced demand charges, increased load carrying

capabilities in existing circuits, improved voltage, reduced power system

losses, and reduced carbon footprint. Power factor correction was designed

to build a device which is able to monitor the energy consumption of a

system and automatically improved its power factor. An open source energy

monitoring library was implemented in the design for accurate power

calculation. The device calculates the reactive power consumed by a

system’s inductive load and compensates the lagging power factor using

capacitance from a capacitor bank (Yasin Kabir, Yusuf Mohammad Mohsin

& Mohammad Monirujjaman Khan, 2017).