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Motor Measurement: Power Factor
Power Factor is the ratio of real power to apparent power for an electrical system.
Motors@Work uses power factor measurements in load and efficiency analytics.
Motors@Work generated priority 1 alerts for low power factor conditions. Motors@Work always considers the absolute value of the power factor.
For motor load calculation, power factor must be greater than 1. If less than one, Motors@Work considers the reading to be power factor from instrumentation.
###Low Power Factor Settings
Power Factor Alert Threshold
Override the power factor below which a priority 1 alert occurs. Specify the value as a percentage (i.e. power factor of .95 = 95% - user would enter 95). Since Motors@Work always considers the absolute value of the power factor, a reading of -94 would trigger an alert. A reading of -96 would not (assuming user still has default value of 95 as the threshold).
To change the reading, open the Setup | Settings page. Find the ‘Power Factor Alert Threshold’ setting and change as necessary. The default value is 95 which corresponds to the NEMA recommendation. A setting of 1 means each low power factor reading creates a priority 1 alert.
Consecutive Low Power Factor Trigger
Automated readings may produce skewed power factor readings while a motor is starting up. For that reason, Motors@Work allows users to set the number of low readings that will create a priority 1 alert.
To change the reading, open the Setup | Settings page. Find the ‘Consecutive Low Power Factor Trigger’ setting and change as necessary. The default value is 1 which means each low power factor reading creates a priority 1 alert.