KYAMBOGO UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS
DEPARTMENT
GROUP PROJECTS
DESIGN OF AN AUTOMATIC POWER FACTOR
CORRECTOR
 SUBMITTED BY

KATEME MERCY 18/U/BEL/6060/PD

AWOR CYNTHIA MERCY 18/U/BEL/6029/PD
SIINAKWOYO LUCY LEAN 18/U/BEL/6030/PD
 
SUPERVISOR: ENG. NASAAGA MUSA
TITLE: Design of an automatic power factor corrector.
BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT

About 13% of total power generated is consumed as power losses at the

distribution system.
Results from the energy audit studies in Uganda showed that most of the
large industries in the country were energy inefficient, with the power factor
ranging between 0.52 and 0.85 thus the need to improve the power factor yet
Uganda’s Electricity (Primary Grid Code) Regulations, 2003, require that the
power factor for electricity distributors and big consumers should not fall
below 0.86. This is because the power factor, is the percentage of electricity
that is used to do useful work in electrical equipment. Therefore, the lower
the power factor, the higher the wastage of the energy resource.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
 
A low power factor causes a higher current flow for a given load. As the line
current increases, the voltage drop in the conductor increases, resulting in a
lower voltage at the equipment. With an improved power factor, the voltage
drop in the conductor is reduced, improving the voltage at the equipment.
Low power factor affects the electrical equipment most especially inductive
loads and varying electrical loads causes high power consumption and high
current flow which leads to power losses in the power distribution system. By
improving the power factor, distribution losses are reduced in distribution
system. Improvement in power factor will also result in increasing the
efficiency as well as the electrical energy saving. Recommendations for
placement of capacitors are to be made using fuzzy logic.
OBJECTIVES
Basing, on our research there are abundant reasons to the cause of improving
the power factor in the generation, transmission and distribution power
sectors but our major emphasis is in the distribution sector. Some of our
objectives of improving power factor are as stated below.

MAIN OBJECTIVE

To design an automatic power factor corrector.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT

• To simulate the fuzzy logic mechanism using MATLAB to find the

optimum position for placing the capacitors.
• To design the automatic power factor correction circuit using PROTEUS
software.
• To program the microcontroller to automatically correct the power factor
using ARDUINO software.
• To test the system.
• To validate the results.
JUSTIFICATION
• Power factor correction aims at improving the power factor, therefore the
power quality. It reduces the load on the distribution system, increases
energy efficiency. It also decreases the likelihood of instability and failure
of equipment.
SIGNIFICANCE
• The significance of Power Factor lies in the fact that utility companies
supply customers with Volt-Amperes, but bill them in Watts. Power factor
below 1 requires a utility company to generate more than the minimum Volt
– Amperes necessary to supply the real power. This increases transmission
and generation costs.
• Utilities typically charge additional costs to consumers who have a power
factor below some limit( for example below 0.85). Improving the power
factor reduces such charges towards the consumers.
 LITERATURE REVIEW
• There are different methods for improving power factor in a power system
network which include placing shunt capacitors in parallel with the load,
using phase advancers and synchronous condensers.
• Shunt capacitors:
The application of shunt capacitors in distribution feeders has always been
an important research area. It is because a portion of power loss in
distribution systems could be reduced by adding shunt capacitors to supply a
part of the reactive power demands.
The power losses can be separated into two parts based on the active and
reactive components of branch currents. The losses produced by reactive
components of branch currents can be reduced by the installation of shunt
capacitors.
• Phase advancers: this is an AC exciter that is mainly used to improve the
power factor of an induction motor. They are mounted on the shaft of the
motor and are connected to the rotor circuit of the motor. It improves the
power factor by providing the exciting ampere turns to produce the required
flux at a given slip frequency. Further if ampere turns increase, it can be made
to operate at a leading power factor.

• Synchronous condensers: These are three phase motors with no load attached
to their shaft. The synchronous motor has the characteristics of operating
under any power factor leading, lagging, or unity depending upon the
excitation. For inductive loads, a synchronous condenser is connected towards
the load side and is overexcited. Synchronous condensers make it behave like
a capacitor. It draws the lagging current from the supply or supplies the
reactive power.
SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

• General purpose of the study is improving the power factor in power

systems.

• The sample considered is in the distribution systems.

• The topics include power factor, voltage drop, power loss.

• The geographical location covered in the study is the central region

particularly Kampala.
TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT USED

• In our project, we are use MATLAB, mathematical tools which are used for
the simulations in fuzzy values.
• Proteus software to design a load circuit and capacitor banks used for
correcting the power factor of the load.
• Arduino software to program the Arduino microcontroller.
METHODOLOGY TO BE USED IN SOLVING THE
PROBLEM
• In MATLAB, fuzzy logic principles are applied to determine the optimal
location for capacitor placement in a radial network. This is by using
voltage drop and power loss values to determine the most suitable position
for the capacitors to work efficiently.
• Using Arduino and Proteus Software, the Arduino is programmed to
calculate the power factor of a system and command the capacitor banks to
be switched whenever correction of power factor is needed.
MATLAB Fuzzy logic model for optimal capacitor placement location

• It consists of two inputs, voltage drop and power loss, that are fed to a fuzzy
logic controller to produce an output.
Block diagram of the fuzzy logic system.

INFERENCE
FUZZIFICATION DEFUZZIFICATION
MECHANISM

RULE BASE
Inputs and output.
Membership functions for Power loss.
• Power loss is divided into levels LOW, MEDIUM and HIGH.
Membership functions for Voltage drop
• Voltage drop is divided into LOW, MEDIUM and HIGH.
Membership functions for suitable capacitor placement
location.
• The output is divided into MOST SUITABLE, MODERATE and POOR.
Fuzzy inference rules
• These are the rules that determine the most suitable position for placing the
capacitors depending on the voltage drop and power loss values.
A view of the fuzzy rules after running the model
Automatic power factor correction circuit.
Proteus simulation software is used to design the power factor correction circuit
that has the following components.
1. Inductive and resistive loads all connected in parallel, assuming all the loads
are fed from one bus.
2. Capacitor banks connected in parallel to the load with a transistor – relay
switching mechanism.
3. Zero crossing detector circuit to convert sinusoidal waves to sqaure waves.
4. Liquid Crystal Display(LCD) to display the power factor value of the load.
5. Arduino Uno microcontroller, that is programmed to automatically switch
the capacitor banks to correct the power factor.
Simple block diagram of the automatic power factor correction circuit.

. CURRENT
TRANSFORMER
240 V VOLTAGE
LOAD
50 HZ TRANSFORMER

CAPACITOR
ZERO BANKS
CROSSING
DETECTOR
RELAYS
ARDUINO
MICRO-
CONTROLLER 20X4 LIQUID CRYSTAL
DISPLAY
The circuit as designed using PROTEUS SOFTWARE
Load and capacitor banks
Liquid Crystal Display(LCD)
Zero crossing detection circuit.
Zero crossing detector waveforms
Arduino Uno microcontroller
Flowchart of program.
RESULTS AND FINDINGS.
• We analyzed the power factor and the reactive power before and after power
factor correction.
• As seen in table 1, Before power factor correction, the power factor is seen
to lower as more inductive load is connected to the system. After correction,
the power factor increases up to 0.95 and above.
• It is also seen in table 2 that the reactive power increases as more inductive
load is connected to the system. After power factor correction, the reactive
power consumed by the load is reduced by a considerable value.
Table 1: Showing Power factor before and after correction.
LOAD PHASE ANGLE , φ POWER FACTOR (Cos φ)
COMBINATIONS (Degrees)
BEFORE AFTER BEFORE AFTER
100Ω -0.97 -0.77 1.00 1.00
100Ω + 100mH -39.5 -17.24 0.77 0.96
100Ω + 100mH + -48.87 -12.11 0.66 0.98
200mH
100Ω + 100mH + -53.89 -16.54 0.59 0.96
200mH + 300mH
100Ω + 100mH + -53.51 -17.68 0.56 0.95
200mH + 300mH +
400mH
100Ω + 100mH + -57.98 -16.00 0.53 0.96
200mH + 300mH +
400mH + 500mH
Table 2: Showing Reactive power before and after power factor
correction
LOAD VOLTAGE , V(V) CURRENT, I (A) REACTIVE POWER
COMBINATIONS Q = VIsinφ (VAR)
BEFORE AFTER
100Ω 240 12 48.755 38.703
100Ω + 100mH 240 12 1831.905 853.56

100Ω + 100mH + 240 12 2169.271 604.193

200mH
100Ω + 100mH + 240 12 2326.715 819.892
200mH + 300mH
100Ω + 100mH + 240 12 2315.407 874.657
200mH + 300mH +
400mH
100Ω + 100mH + 240 12 2441.846 793.836
200mH + 300mH +
400mH + 500mH
Graph of Reactive power against Power factor before power
factor correction.
reactive power
3000

2500

2000
reactive power
1500

1000

500

0
1 0.77 0.660000000000001 0.59 0.56 0.53
Graph of Reactive power against Power factor after powerfactor
correction.

REACTIVE POWER
1000
900
800
700
600
REACTIVE POWER
500
400
300
200
100
0
1 0.96 0.98 0.96 0.95 0.96
CONCLUSION
• We have tested all the possible combinations of these loads and checked
whether the system can improve the power factor to 0.95 or not. What we
observed, no matter what the load combination is, the system corrected the
power factor whenever it was below 0.95. Thus we can say that the
objective of this project to correct the power factor is achieved.
CHALLENGES
• First of all the Arduino code could not run on the Proteus software circuit
and it took very many days for us to figure out that we needed to put many
delays such that the program can analyse the data it is receiving properly
and give it time to act accordingly.
• It was very hard to design the most efficient circuit, while thinking about
cost too.
DRAWBACKS OF THE PROJECT.
• Since this is a very low voltage circuit, we may be required to substitute
some components for those that can work efficiently at high voltages at the
substations.
REFERENCES