Power Factor of 1 VS .7 power factor , What is the difference?

[danny davis]

What is the difference between a product/unit with a power factor of 1 VS a product/unit with a power factor of .7?

Power factor of 1 is KV
Power factor of .7 is KVA

Power Factor of 1 means it's 100% Power/watts
Power Factor of .7 mean it's 70% power/watts and 30% the current and voltage is Power LOSS

Power Factor is the PEAK or RMS? Power factor is the True Power?

Power Factor of 1 is Voltage X current
Power Factor of .7 is Not Voltage X current, why is that?

 

[YEAR_]

power factor signifies the amount of power that is consumed(active power) and reflected(reactive power).
Loads with some capacitive/inductive behavior dissipate some of the energy as active power and store the other and return it back to the source as a reactive power.

active power -> P = V X I X pf, pf = cos(phase angle)

a higher power factor of 1 unit will consume all the energy delivered to it while a unit with pf of 0.7 will return some electrical energy to the system, causing distortions on the supplied current and voltage.
The 30% is not necessarily lost, rather returned to the source, but because it creates distortion, it increases the loss on the supply line, transformer....

 

[danny davis]

If a Unit is a power factor of 1, I CAN NOT hook up any kind of load that is inductive or a capacitive load?

So power factor is the Real Power or True Power?

Power Factor is for Reactive loads

Where do they come up with the .7 ? why .7 ? what is the .7 ? is this a phase shift of .7 from voltage to current leading and lagging?

The power factor has nothing to do with the design of the circuit? is only has to do with the LOAD? the load has a power factor of .7 ? it's not the circuit / design of the unit that has the 0.7 power factor?

 

[Kral]

Power factor is a dimensionless number equal to (real power)/(volt amperes). I is always less than or equal to 1. For example, if a device has a volt ampere rating of 1000VA with a power factor of 0.7, then the real power consumed is 1000 X 0.7 = 700W. For sinusoidal voltage and current waveforms, the reactive power is SQRT(1000^2-700^2) = 714.1VA. For non-sinusoidal waveforms, the calculations are not so easy. One way is to do a Fourier analysis of the voltage and current waveforms, and calculate the real power and reactive power due to each frequency component.