INTRODUCTION

Power factor is a crucial concept in electrical efficiency, impacting energy consumption in automated systems. In this assignment, you will learn how to calculate power, including the effects of power factor, to better understand how electricity is used in manufacturing environments. This builds upon your knowledge of power calculations and circuit behavior.

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OBJECTIVE

Learn about power factor and practice calculating power, including power factor adjustments.

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POWER FACTOR

Now that you understand what power is, how to calculate it, and its relationship with amps and volts, this activity will focus your attention on something called power factor.

	Note!
	Do not get caught up in the equations in the videos of power factor. You do not need to know them. You only need to know how to calculate power given a power factor value as seen below. What you need to learn from this section is that power factor exists. It exists only for AC power. DC power is not effected. When you have induction motors on a system, you get loss of power. This loss of power is called power factor. It is a ratio of your true power (Actual power doing work) divided by your apparent power (Total power put into the system). Power factor is given in terms of %. So, if you have a power factor less than 1, you are losing power. For example, if I have a power factor of 0.85 that means that I am losing 15% of my power and I am only getting 85% of my power. This is really all that you need to know for now. Glean what information you can from this. Take the quiz and keep moving forward.

First, watch the following video. For this video focus on the concepts. Do not worry about any of the calculations.

Engineering Mindset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv_7XWf96gg&t=4s

Many students find the "Engineering Mindset" video confusing. To clear up some of the confusion, this next video will graph power factor for clarification on many of those topics.

Below is an additional video that explains more on power factor.

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POWER EQUATIONS

Power factor only affects AC circuits. It does not affect DC circuits. Below are the equations for calculating power for both AC and DC

AC power

P = V x I x pf

DC power

P = V x I

Where,

P = Power

V = Volts

I = current in Amps

pf = Power factor which is a %.

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TROUBLESHOOTING REFERENCE PAGE

Units

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SUBMISSION

Now, you will answer questions about power factor that you have learned from this page.