🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1452@umigw.MIAMI.EDU> wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) writes:
>
>One question I never asked a utility when I should have...  
>
>Virtually everything causes inductive power factor problems. You
>correct for it (typically) with capacitors (some old-timers may call'em
>condensers, but I think those belong to steam engines and HVAC units :-}).
>
>What does the utility think if you offer to correct other people's
>leading PF by having too many farads?

They don't like that, either.  Their resistive losses go with
I-squared-times-R, and generators and transformers are limited
by heat, and thus handle a maximum current, not a maximum power.
So utilities want as much of the current to be in-phase as can
be managed.

(By the way, idling synchronous motors can also "generate" VARs
 {be capacitive}.  Factories would just switch to all synchronous
 motors if the utility paid for VAR generation.)