Conventional “Correction” is not TruePFC™

There are a few well-known names in power factor related equipment. But these companies and some lesser-known companies use conventional eight-step, three-phase capacitor technology. This presents a problem, where sensing or switching techniques – the most critical aspects of power factor correction – are not considered. These companies do not correct power factor; they merely change it. The use of the word “correction” here is, indeed, misleading. The current system produces limited savings without efficiency.

Power factor meters used by the utility and PF equipment salesmen take a sample of the “average” power factor every three seconds and base their data on those samples. Conventional technology responds to this fragmented information once every twenty seconds. This approach is akin to saying, “If it wasn’t measured, it didn’t happen.”

The result is that the customer with the poor power factor does not pay the penalty, but the utility has to collect the revenue from somewhere – usually by increasing rates across the board. Eventually, everyone pays for poor power factor.

Another problem caused by conventional power factor correction technology is an inevitable increase in the billable kWh of a facility. In an attempt to correct to a .90 power factor, they experience long periods of time of over-capacitance (leading phase angle which causes current harmonics) that has to be mitigated with a reactor coil that uses a significant amount of electricity. So, not only does conventional technology fail to correct the power factor, it actually increases the billable kWh.

We encourage you to take a closer look at other power factor companies and compare their features and performance records with ours. You’ll see that conventional PF correction technology offers too much or too little capacitance. You’ll wonder how correcting “average power factor” to .90 less than 2% of the time can be called “correction” at all.