Slack, Kevin D. and Barney L. Capehart, "Economic Comparison Of Power Factor Correction By Capacitors And High Power Factor/High-Efficiency Motors," to appear in Energy Engineering, 1998.
ABSTRACT
The traditional approach to power factor correction in a facility is to add capacitors to individual loads such as motors and fluorescent lighting circuits, to add a capacitor bank with switching to a major distribution panel, or to add a capacitor bank with switching to the power input panel from the utility lines. Recently it has been shown that careful selection of high-efficiency motors for a facility can result in new motors with a significantly higher power factor than the motors they replaced. This paper compares and discusses the cost-effectiveness of installing capacitors on individual motors with the cost-effectiveness of installing high-efficiency, high power factor motors.