The application of capacitors on rural distribution systems

The application of capacitors has become commonplace in the United States. There was a time when the application of capacitors on a wide scale basis was unusual because losses didn´t cost that much and regulators handled the voltage drop quite well. Things have changed. Losses are a major concern. Voltage quality, due to more sensitive loads, is an issue. Finally, in today´s world of cutting costs, capacitors are seen as the cheap way to reduce losses, improve voltage and get more watts out of what´s already there. The purpose of this paper is to very briefly review some of the considerations rural distribution engineers might address in the application of capacitors.