Impedance Matching - Power Factor Correction

Power Factor Correction

Power factor correction devices are intended to cancel the reactive and nonlinear characteristics of a load at the end of a power line. This causes the load seen by the power line to be purely resistive. For a given true power required by a load this minimizes the true current supplied through the power lines, and minimizes power wasted in the resistance of those power lines. For example, a maximum power point tracker is used to extract the maximum power from a solar panel and efficiently transfer it to batteries, the power grid or other loads. The maximum power theorem applies to its "upstream" connection to the solar panel, so it emulates a load resistance equal to the solar panel source resistance. However, the maximum power theorem does not apply to its "downstream" connection. That connection is an impedance bridging connection; it emulates a high-voltage, low-resistance source to maximize efficiency.

On the power grid the overall load is usually inductive. Consequently, power factor correction is most commonly achieved with banks of capacitors. It is only necessary for correction to be achieved at one single frequency, the frequency of the supply. Complex networks are only required when a band of frequencies must be matched and this is the reason why simple capacitors are all that is usually required for power factor correction.