AEL-RPC Reactive Power Compensation Application

The Reactive Power Compensation Application, "AEL-RPC", has been designed to study the reactive power effects in AC circuits, due to reactive loads, and its compensation procedures.

Reactive power can be described as the quantity of "unused" power that is developed by reactive components, such as inductors or capacitors in an AC circuit or system. The power factor (PF) is defined as the ratio between the active power in watts and the apparent power in volt-amperes and indicates how effectively electrical power is being used, so the closer the power factor is to 1 the more efficient use of the electrical power.

The "AEL-RPC" application includes all types of variable loads (resistive, inductive and capacitive) to study the power factor correction.

In real power systems almost all circuits are inductive so the compensation procedure is done by placing capacitive loads through many different configurations. A network analyzer is also included to measure the electrical parameters (currents,voltages,frequency, powers or the power factor) that the user must know for the previously mentioned purpose. In addition an overcurrent relay and a power switch are included as protection devices.