Investigation of DC electric arc furnace average power factor calculation using IEEE standard 1459

The value of average power factor generally is an important penalty factor in the revenue of large-size electricity customers. But the traditional power factor definitions assume that load conditions are sinusoidal and effects of unbalance are neglected. It is required that a suitable power factor definition could reflect the load characteristics considering fluctuation, harmonics, and unbalance. Therefore, the customers would be forced to improve the power quality disturbances. In this paper, six average power factor definitions, three based on the IEEE standard 1459-2000 and three focused on fundamental components, are compared to investigate effects on billing. The data from a 161-kV DC electric arc furnace user is used to reveal the differences in power factor values. Several apparent power values are compared. The statistic results of harmonic distortion and load unbalance are also considered.