EE207 Electrical Power

Lecture 1 Active, Reactive, and Apparent Power

AC power
The behavior of AC machines and systems are often easier to understand by working with power, rather than working with voltages and currents Active, reactive, and apparent power apply to steady-state AC circuits with sinusoidal waveforms only cannot be used to describe the transient behaviors cannot be used to describe dc circuits
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Instantaneous Power
Instantaneous Power:
is the product of the instantaneous voltage across the terminals of one device times the instantaneous current that flows through it.
p( t ) = v ( t ) i ( t ) Watts

Rajparthiban Kumar

EE207

Electrical Power

 Positive instantaneous power means power flows into the device, conversely negative value of it indicates that power flows out of the device.

Rajparthiban Kumar

EE207

Electrical Power

Instantaneous Power
Example: A sinusoidal voltage source has a voltage peak Vp= 162Vand frequency of 60Hz is applied to the terminals of an AC motor. The resulting current has a peak of 7.5 A and lags 50o behind the voltage.
a) Express the voltage and current in terms of electrical angle . b) Calculate the value of the instantaneous voltage and current at an angle of 120o. c) Calculate the value of the instantaneous power at 120o
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Instantaneous Power
Solution a) Voltage and Current: v = V p sin t = V p sin
v = 162 sin and i = 7.5 sin( 50o )

b) At =120o

v = 162 sin 120 o = 140.3V and i = 7.5 sin(120 o 50o )

= 7.5 0.94 = 7.05 A c) The instantaneous power at 120o p = v i = 140.3 * 7.05 = 989W
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Instantaneous Power
The instantaneous power, voltage and current are plotted using MATLAB in Figure below. Try it Instat. Power 1000 W yourself!
v=162V

I= 7.5 A
0

- 218 W

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780

Rajparthiban Kumar

EE207

Electrical Power

Instantaneous Power
You can observe from the graph that The instantaneous power has positive peaks 1000W and negative peaks 218W. (Try to write an equation to express the maximum power). The instantaneous power pulsates at 120Hz which is twice the supply frequency!

Rajparthiban Kumar

EE207

Electrical Power

Active Power
Active Power: is also known as the Real Power, and it is the power that produces heat in a resistance, and useful work (torque in motor). Active Power always flows from source to load. Active power in with a resistive load can be calculated as the average instantaneous power in that load. i.e.
1 t =T P= p( t ) dt T t =0
Electrical Power

Rajparthiban Kumar

EE207

Active Power
From the previous equation if the voltage and current are defined as a function of time as:
v ( t ) = V p sin (t + ), = 2f and f = i ( t ) = I p sin (t + ) then 1 P = VpI p 2
v(t) i(t) R

1 T

Note that the voltage and current in resistive element are in phase i.e. they have the same .
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Active Power
Same result can be obtained if the Effective (rms) values of the current and the voltage are used. i.e.:
Ip 1 t =T 2 I eff = ( i ( t )) dt = T t =0 2 Vp 1 t =T 2 Veff = (v ( t )) dt = T t =0 2 Thus 1 P = Veff I eff = V p I p 2

Rajparthiban Kumar

EE207

Electrical Power

11

Active Power
Example: A sinusoidal voltage source has a voltage peak Vp= 162Vand frequency of 60Hz is applied to the terminals of a resistive load. The resulting current has a peak of 7.5 A.
a) Express the voltage and current in terms of electrical angle . b) Calculate the value of the instantaneous voltage and current at an angle of 120o. c) Calculate the value of the instantaneous power at 120o d) Calculate the value of the load.
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Active Power
Solution a) Voltage and Current: v = V p sin t = V p sin

v = 162 sin and i = 7.5 sin

b) At =120o
v = 162 sin 120o = 140.3V and i = 7.5 sin(120 o ) = 7.5 0.86 = 6.45 A c) The instantaneous power at 120o p = v i = 140.3 * 6.45 = 905W
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Active Power
Veff I eff

d) The load

R=

= 21.6

The instantaneous power, voltage and current are plotted using MATLAB in Figure below. Try it yourself!

Rajparthiban Kumar

EE207

Electrical Power

14

Active Power
Peak Power =1215

Vp=162V Ip=7.5A
0

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480

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600

660

720

Rajparthiban Kumar

EE207

Electrical Power

15

Active Power
You can observe from the graph that The instantaneous power has ONLY positive peaks 1215W. Which verifies that Active Power will always flow from source to load. The Active Power P can be calculated as the average of the Instantaneous Power from the figure. The instantaneous power pulsates at 120Hz which is twice the supply frequency!

Rajparthiban Kumar

EE207

Electrical Power

16

Active Power
We have seen that the active power can be obtained from the product of the in phase components of the effective values of the voltage and current. To understand this lets consider the following example: A sinusoidal AC voltagev ( t ) = V p cos (t + ) is applied across the terminals of a network and produced a current given as: i(t)
i ( t ) = I p cos(t + )
v(t) Z

Rajparthiban Kumar

EE207

Electrical Power

17

Active Power
Note that the voltage and current are at different phase angles (, and respectively) and the load is given as Z (impedance). Lets consider this general example to find P. To simplify the analysis, the phasor representation will be used, and the cosine function (i.e. cost) will be used as a reference. Thus the rms voltage and current phasors are given as: V = V o
rms

I = I rms o
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Active Power
V = Vrms o = Vrms (cos + j sin ) = a + jb I = I rms o = I rms (cos + j sin ) = c + jd

Since the phase difference between the voltage and the current is ( ) then the active power is given as:
P = Vrms I rms cos( ) = Vrms I rms (cos cos + sin sin ) = ac + bd

The above term can also be obtained by taking the Real part of the result of the multiplication
EE207 Electrical Power 19

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Active power
of the voltage times the complex conjugate of the current. i.e.
P = Re VI *

{ } ( = Re { a + jb )(c + jd ) }
*

= Re{(ac + bd ) + j (bc ad )} = (ac + bd )

Note that the Imaginary part represents the Reactive Power; which will be discussed next.
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