<[email protected]>, Jon Griver <[email protected]> inimitably wrote: >To the best of my knowledge, EU regulations do not require power factor >correction. What is required under the EMC directive is compliance with >EN61000-3-2, the standard for limitation of harmonic current emissions. >There is, of course, an indirect relationship between power factor and >harmonics, but the EU requirement concerns harmonics, not power factor.
What you say is correct as far as it goes, but it is difficult to meet the harmonic limits without introducing active compensation, which is nowadays called 'power factor correction'. This terminology comes for the extension of the concept of power factor to the case of a non-linear load, where the definition: power factor = true power/(r.m.s. volts x r.m.s. amps) still applies. Power factor is then divided into: - displacement power factor, due to V and I not being exactly in-phase, and - distortion power factor, due to (in general) the current having harmonic components that are not present in the voltage, and/or vice versa. -- Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only. Phone +44 (0)1268 747839 Fax +44 (0)1268 777124. http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Why not call a vertically- applied manulo-pedally-operated quasi-planar chernozem-penetrating and excavating implement a SPADE? ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Michael Garretson: [email protected] Dave Heald [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.rcic.com/ click on "Virtual Conference Hall,"
