A Study on Power Factor Improvement and Its Relationship With Harmonics

This is a report written for a research project on Power Factor Correction and The
Interaction with Harmonics. These two issues are the major concerns in power quality
analysis. Power quality is defined as a set of electrical boundaries that allows equipment
to function in its intended manner without significant loss of performance or life
expectancy.
The aim of this project is to understand power factor as a part of power quality concern
and how it relates to harmonics problems by developing a simulation to justify the issue.
Prior to this, there is a need to understand the overall concept of power factor and
harmonics. Literature reviews on the relevant topics are carried out. This will further
explained in Chapter 2.
The project methodology is discussed in chapter 3. Basically the project involves the
research of relevant topics and analysis of the finding. The main concern here is the study
on the effect of improving power factor to harmonic in the harmonic impedance network.
The finding will be further verified by simulation using the power system software
(ERACS).
The results and finding are discussed in the chapter 4. Here, the student has briefly
discussed the findings from the research done on related topic. This chapter describes the
analysis that has been done on harmonic effect in a distribution network and the
resonance phenomena in the system. A few case studies are conducted .The effect of
power factor improvement using capacitor bank is shown.
Chapter 5 discusses the conclusion of this project in relevancy of the project's objectives.
It can be concluded that even though power factor is an old and at first glance
uninteresting concept, it is worthy of being re-visited because it has, in a relatively simple
way, the potential of being very useful in limiting the harmonics produced by modern day
distorting loads.