Fast-response power factor computation technique

Power factor measuring is an important issue in industrial environment to maintain an acceptable quality of the delivered power. This paper describes a novel and fast response power factor computation technique. It employs microcontroller and two phase-locked loop (PLL) circuits. Only one sample from two signals that formed from the source voltage and the load current are required to execute the power factor computation using microcontroller. The system gives the instantaneous power factor reading during the PLL steady state conditions. The experimentally results of the proposed system has been found to be satisfactory.