We worked on dozens of commercial PV systems in Southern California Edison
(SCE), Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP), and San Diego Gas &
Electric (SDG&E) territories. We installed Xantrex, SMA, and SatCon
inverters and measured power factor on both the grid and the inverters. In
every case, inverter power factor was 1. In almost every case LADWP's power
factor was less than 1 and in older parts of Los Angeles power factor was
often 0.75. SCE and SDG&E generally has pretty good power factors. In
general, PV inverters do not worsen grid power factor. In general, newer
sections of the grid are better designed and better managed than older grid
sections. When utility companies or anyone says PV causes grid problems, ask
for proof.
Joel Davidson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darryl Thayer" <[email protected]>
To: "RE-wrenches" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 9:39 PM
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Power Factor and Grid Tied PV
I recently spoke with an inverter manufacture and I left with the following
opinion. Normally the inverter takes the unity power factor load and leaves
the reactive load. making the power factor worse. However the power factor
could be corrected by the inverter, However this would add cost to the
inverter and would not appear to have value to the solar industry. There
are variable reactance devices existing that can correct power factor, is
there need for another device?
Darryl
Hello Wrenches,
Commercial power customers often are penalized for low
power factors.
Looking for other info I came across this article, which
seems to
cover the subject from an academic standpoint.
http://tinyurl.com/ye5pzrw Does anyone
have real world data which
might shed light on the impact of a DGT PV system on power
factor.
With Regards
Carl Adams
SunRock Solar, LLC.
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