Why install Capacitors to correct your low Power Factor?

Low power factor is expensive and inefficient - a capacitor by Earth Tech is the correction.

CAPACITORS V. POWER FACTOR

To better understand Power Factor and corrective attributes of capacitors, the following is an analogous description from the United States Department of Energy:

To understand power factor, visualize a horse pulling a railroad car down a railroad track.

Because the railroad ties are uneven, the horse must pull the car from the side of the track. The horse is pulling the railroad car at an angle to the direction of the car’s travel.

The power required to move the car down the track is the working (real) power. The effort of the horse is the total (apparent) power.

Because of the angle of the horse’s pull, not all of the horse’s effort is used to move the car down the track. The car will not move sideways; therefore, the sideways pull of the horse is wasted effort or nonworking (reactive) power.

The angle of the horse’s pull is related to power factor, which is defined as the ratio of real (working) power to apparent (total) power.

If the horse is led closer to the center of the track, the angle of side pull decreases and the real power approaches the value of the apparent power. Therefore, the ratio of real power to apparent power (the power factor) approaches 1. As the power factor approaches 1, the reactive (nonworking) power approaches 0.

Click here to visit the Department of Energy's page on Power Factor.