Automated Power Factor Correction and Surge Protection

Automatic Power factor correction is the capacity of absorbing the reactive power produced by a load. In case of fixed loads, this can be done manually by switching of capacitors, however in case of rapidly varying and scattered loads it becomes difficult to maintain a high power factor by manually switching on/off the capacitors in proportion to variation of load within an installation. This drawback is overcome by using an APFC panel. In recent years, the power quality of the ac system has become great concern due to the rapidly increased numbers of electronic equipment, power electronics and high voltage power system. most of the commercial and industrial installation in the country has large electrical loads which are severally inductive in nature causing lagging power factor which gives heavy penalties to consumer by electricity board. This situation is taken care by APFC . In this paper measuring of power factor from load is done by Arduino and trigger required capacitors
in order to compensate reactivepower and bring power factor near to unity.