[richw]

Anybody have real experience in

Power Factor Correction

to lower electrical bills

These are the automatic capicitor banks that switch
in and I believe sort of back fill the power normally wasted
by motors

[SSearchVT]

Are these along the lines of regenerative braking in hybrid cars?

From what I have read and seen the minimal amount of wind down free wheeling most motors have in a residential instalation it would take years to break even on the cost...

[dave72370]

Rich,

you are correct. The capacitors were put in place to level out the load created by high inductance loads, IE electrical motors during start up. This is essential in a case where you are on a demand electrical service

[ChR1s]

http://www.energyideas.org/documents...ducing_pwr.pdf

[richw]

Thanks Chris one of the better resources.

I guess mine sucks because I have DC drives that are basically huge light dimmers and of course a spining DC motor is a big generator.

I will get a quote for a system but think if I can find individual units for each machine I might rather have that.

[sandman]

if your needs are dc, go solar.

how many amp hrs a day do you use?

[richw]

600 Amps at 480 VAC 3P

I don't think my roof is big enough I know my wallet isn't

[ZX-12R]

That's a large load! What are you powering with these motors?

A bank of capacitors rated for 288KVA will be expensive to say the least, but they will eventually pay for themselves. For a load of your size, talk to a company that specializes in applications like this. They will also have the equipment to measure your current power factor and will be able to provide you an estimate of how much money you will save and how quickly your investment will pay for itself.

[richw]

I have a wire drawing factory.

This year i expect my average bill to be around 4500 / month

[sandman]

at 4500 a month it might be cheaper to buy and run a couple of diesel gen sets