HW1_Paper_08-26-23

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University of Central Florida *

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Electrical Engineering

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Feb 20, 2024

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Marcus Davis HW1 HW1 – “What is Reactive Power?” a) After a major blackout caused by a lack of reactive power, you are asked this question by a newspaper journalist. o In light of recent events, some people have been asking what is “reactive power”, and how can it cause a major blackout? Reactive power can be thought of as shared power. At any one time there are homes and businesses connected to the power grid which you could say hold extra energy like a battery. When one home turns on its air conditioning, a surge of power is created in that instant. Some of the reactive power from the home that has too much, shares it with the home that is trying to start its air conditioning. o If everyone turns on their air conditioning in the same grid at the same time, then no reactive power will be available. In this case all energy will be coming from the power company. When too much power is drawn from a source, the system will cause what is referred to in the energy industry as a lagging condition. This causes systems to generate more heat due to transmission and can cause failure at the weakest point. b) You are giving a training course to a group of power system operators (very experience people, but none have engineering degrees), and one of them raises their hand and asks you this question. o Reactive power is the characteristic which describes the reason we need to have a power factor. As we know the apparent power is the instantaneous power demand from a given system. Within this system the active power is what is actually being consumed by the customer over a period of time. In this example the reactive power is circulating within this grid being shared between end users to be eventually returned back to the source. Therefore it could be said that reactive power is not really consumed, but shared and does yield a net zero return during a given cycle. c) You are asked this question by a summer intern, a junior EE from UCF who is going to choose the senior classes. o Reactive power is more than just a source of surge current, it is also a part of apparent power as measured by the source. Reactive power is present in both AC and DC applications. When analyzing apparent power it can be shown that the reactive current component whether it is lagging or leading, is indeed the current differing in phase from the voltage. o Simultaneously, the current component which is in phase with the voltage component is responsible for the active power portion of apparent power. This split primarily due to the reactive nature of certain inductive appliances such as motor compressors for air conditioning and heating coils inside of air handlers cause a surge of power demand while they are starting. Once these appliances have reached their stable operating current they are able to then share excess reactive power with other

Marcus Davis HW1 appliances which demand it. The same could be said about the power grid in how power is shared between city blocks and power distribution centers. Therefore reactive power yields net zero consumption because the reactive power that is used by some customers is put back into the grid and used by someone else before it is eventually returned back to the power company or the power source.

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