APFC Panel
Industries are heavily dependent on power for their ma- chinery. As per the increases of industrial load, the demand of power will be increased. However, they often fail to utilize the supplied power effectively and end up.
An Automatic Power Factor Control (APFC) Panel is an electrical control panel designed to automatically maintain and improve the power factor of an electrical system. Power factor is the ratio between real power (kW) and apparent power (kVA), and it indicates how effectively electrical power is being used. A low power factor leads to higher power losses and penalties from electricity providers.
The APFC panel continuously monitors the reactive power (kVAR) requirements of the load and automatically switches capacitor banks on or off using contactors or thyristor modules to maintain the desired power factor, typically close to unity (1.0). This automation is managed by a microcontroller-based Power Factor Controller, which receives inputs from Current Transformers (CTs) and Voltage Transformers (VTs).