Analysis of Power Factor Over Correction in
a Distribution Feeder
Alvaro Furlani Bastos, Surya Santoso, The University of Texas at Austin
Levent Biyikli, The 3M Company
Abstract — Capacitor banks are commonly connected to the
power system to enhance its reliability by providing voltage
support, improving power factor, and increasing the system
capacity. They are usually switched in and out of the system
according to the amount of connected load. This paper analyzes
measurement data of a distribution utility with capacitor banks
located downstream from the power quality monitor. It was
observed that the amount of reactive power injected into the
system was larger than the necessary, resulting in power factor
over correction. The paper then provides an analysis method to
determine the capacitor bank size to achieve a desired power
factor correction. An algorithm is also proposed to override a
switching control (usually time, voltage, or temperature), such
that the switching is performed only if the power factor is below
a preset minimum value. Moreover, it is advised to switch each
phase individually, as the reactive power flow differs significantly
between the three phases.
Index Terms – capacitor bank energizing, power factor
correction, power quality, power system loss, power system
transients
I. INTRODUCTION
Capacitor banks are widely used to improve the power
system operation by injecting reactive power into a
predominantly inductive system. The benefits include system
voltage support under heavily loaded conditions and reduction
in the reactive current flow through the power system, which
results in an improved power factor, less system losses, and
increased system capacity [1]. Although there are other
alternatives to accomplish such effects, capacitor banks are
preferred due to its trouble-free operation and low maintenance
costs [2].
The capacitor banks may be continuously energized or
switched according to the load levels. The energizing occurs
nearly the same time every day and thus represents one of the
most common switching events on power systems. These
energizing events may cause oscillatory transients, usually
accompanied by overvoltage and high inrush current.
These banks are usually composed of smaller units
connected in series and parallel to obtain the desired
capacitance, which is the same value for all three phases.
However, the power system has become increasingly
unbalanced, especially because of the connection of large
single-phase loads [3] and single-phase distributed generation
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such as PV systems. This fact represents a challenge in selecting
the appropriate size of the capacitor bank, since each phase is
likely to be operating at a slightly different voltage level and
power factor.
Previous study showed that an independent phase switching
control improves the power system operation such as reduced
line losses, improved distribution voltage, and increased
distribution system capacity [4]. However, this control system
delivers a fixed amount of reactive power in each phase.
This paper presents an analysis of overcompensation in the
power factor correction of a distribution utility. It then proposes
a method to resize the capacitor bank and an algorithm to
override the existing switching control technique to avoid the
excessive injection of reactive power into the system. Section
II reviews the basic benefits of capacitor banks on power
systems; Sections III and IV analyzes the overcompensation in
the power factor correction; Section V describes the procedure
to resize the capacitor; and Section VI proposes an algorithm to
control the bank switching.
II. BENEFITS OF CAPACITOR BANKS ON POWER SYSTEMS
As most of the load and power system components have an
inductive nature, the normal operation corresponds to a lagging
power factor. In such cases, there is an additional flow of
reactive power, resulting in reduced system capacity, increased
system losses, and reduced system voltage [1]. Most of the
utilities apply additional charges to large customers when the
power factor is less than some preset limit; therefore, customers
operating large inductive loads commonly install capacitor
banks to improve the poor power factor and avoid the penalty.
The effect of capacitor banks on the power factor is
illustrated by the power triangle in Fig. 1. The capacitor bank
injects the reactive power Qcap into the system, decreasing the
reactive power flow from Qorig to Qnew, while keeping the active
power P constant. The power factor angle decreases from θorig
to θnew, i. e., the power factor changes from pforig = cos(θorig) to
pfnew = cos(θnew).
The amount of reactive power necessary to obtain the
desired effect is dependent on the active power consumption
and the original and new power factors [2]; its value is
computed according to (1).
 voltage source, and the voltage rise is higher at the point of
P installation of the capacitor bank. The capacitor current reduces
θnew the inductive current through the inductive reactance of the
θorig. system, i. e., there is a decrease in the voltage drop along the
Qnew
feeder.
Snew For systems with a high X/R ratio, the per unit voltage rise
Qorig.
ΔV at the point of the capacitor installation can be estimated as
Sorig.
Qcap. 𝑄𝑐 [kvar]
∆𝑉 = (4)
𝑆𝑠𝑐 [kva]
where Qc is the capacitor three-phase kvar at system voltage and
Figure 1 – Power triangle representing the power factor correction Ssc is the system three-phase short-circuit kva at the capacitor
location [6].
The estimation of the voltage rise is independent of the load;
𝑄𝑐𝑎𝑝 = 𝑃 ∙ (tan𝜃𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔 − tan𝜃𝑛𝑒𝑤 ) hence, the appropriate voltage regulation is achieved by
switching on the capacitor banks during high loads operation,
1 1 (1) and switching off during light loading periods to avoid
𝑃 = √ 2 −1−√ 2 −1 excessive voltage rise.
𝑝𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔 𝑝𝑓𝑛𝑒𝑤
As stated above, connecting shunt capacitor banks can
The best scenario corresponds to the unity power factor, reduce the current flow through the feeder upline from the
which means the apparent power is composed of only active
capacitor location. The percent line current reduction %ΔI can
power; this situation can be achieved by selecting the capacitor
be approximated as
bank size as 𝑄𝑐𝑎𝑝,𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 𝑃 ∙ tan𝜃𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔 . Any capacitor bank
larger than Qcap,max will create a leading power factor, which 𝑝𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔
also has losses associated with it. In this case, the capacitor bank %∆𝐼 = 100 ∙ (1 − ) (5)
𝑝𝑓𝑛𝑒𝑤
provides all the reactive power required by the load and injects
the remaining reactive power back into generation side of the where pforig and pfnew are the power factors before and after the
system. correction, respectively [2].
It is important to consider the actual output reactive power As the power losses are directly proportional to the square
of the capacitor bank Qactual, since this value usually differs of the current, the reduction in power system losses are
from the rated value Qrated; the relation between these values is estimated by
given as 2
𝑝𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔
𝑘𝑉𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 2 %𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = 100 ∙ [1 − ( ) ] (6)
𝑄𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 = 𝑄𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 ∙ ( ) (2) 𝑝𝑓𝑛𝑒𝑤
𝑘𝑉𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑
There is no power loss reduction between the capacitor bank
where kVactual and kVrated are both either line-to-line or line-to- and the load; the estimative given in (6) represents the reduction
neutral voltages. in the lines and transformers upline from the capacitor bank.
The time-series active power p and reactive power q are This fact justifies the installation of the capacitor banks as close
computed through the sampled voltage and current data, using as possible to the load.
the time delay approach [5]. Their values are defined as III. A CASE STUDY
𝑡+𝑁−1
1 This section depicts the effects caused by a capacitor bank
𝑝(𝑡) = ∑ 𝑣(𝑘)𝑖(𝑘) switching, as discussed in Section II. The analysis is based on
𝑁 the voltage and current data collected by a power quality
𝑘=𝑡
(3) monitor located upstream from the capacitor bank. The
𝑡+𝑁−1
1 𝑁 distribution utility where the data were collected is composed
𝑞(𝑡) = ∑ 𝑣 (𝑘 − ) 𝑖(𝑘)
𝑁 4 of diverse parallel feeders connected to the main 25 kV bus.
𝑘=𝑡
The power quality monitor is located at the main bus, such that
where v and i are the sampled voltage and current data, the capacitor banks are downstream from it. The data used in
respectively, and N is the number of samples per cycle. this paper corresponds to one of the feeders, which has some
capacitor banks spread along its length. Each one of these banks
Besides avoiding the power factor to become leading, the
is rated 600 kvar (200 kvar/phase).
determination of the maximum capacitor bank size should also
consider the voltage rise due to the capacitor energizing and the The portions of interest of the waveforms are extracted
switchgear continuous current limitations. using an algorithm developed to detect capacitor bank
switching events; its implementation is based on the Wavelet
The energization of shunt capacitors also results in a voltage
Transform, with Daubechies 4 as the mother wavelet [7]; the
rise along the feeder between the capacitor location and the
voltage and current waveforms around the switching instant are

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shown in Fig. 3. The waveforms confirm that the capacitor Table 3 – RMS current before and after the capacitor bank energizing
bank is, in fact, downstream from the monitor location, as the Current before Current after the Reduction
Phase
gradient of voltage and current for each phase at the switching the switching (A) switching (A) (%)
instant have opposite signs [8]. A 25.96 25.43 2.04
B 20.23 16.59 17.99
C 26.42 24.64 6.74

Table 4 represents the reactive power flowing in the power

quality monitor before and after the capacitor bank energizing.
Note that each phase has a different reactive power flow;
therefore, in order to achieve the ideal scenario (unity power
factor), it is necessary to inject a different amount of reactive
power into each phase. The negative values for the reactive
power after the capacitor bank energizing indicates that the
bank size is larger than the necessary, i.e., it is able to provide
all reactive power consumed by the load and injects the
remaining reactive power back to the generation side.
Table 4 – Reactive power flow in the power quality monitor before and after
the capacitor bank energizing
Reactive power Reactive power
Reduction
Phase flow before the flow after the
(kvar)
switching (kvar) switching (kvar)
Figure 2 – Voltage and current waveforms during the capacitor energizing A 114.6 -73.3 187.9
B 163.6 -29.9 193.5
Table 1 represents the power factor before and after the C 139.6 -47.9 187.5
capacitor bank energizing for each phase. Note that the values Note: a negative sign indicates reactive power flowing back to the source
are significantly different for each phase; therefore, injecting
the same amount of reactive power in each phase is not the best Also note that the variation in the reactive power flow is
approach. For example, this operation can convert a power essentially the same in all phases, i. e., the capacitor bank
factor to a leading value (if the capacitor bank size is connected to each phase has, indeed, the same size. Although
determined considering only phase B, the worst phase), or leave this variation is similar in all phases, the power factor in phase
the worst phase still operating below the minimum power factor B is more affected by the energizing because it is providing
to avoid penalties (if the sizing considers only phase A data, the significantly less active power; in fact, the active power in
best phase). In fact, all power factor values become leading phase B is 255.4 kW, while it is 370.1 kW and 371.2 kW for
after the fixed-size capacitor bank is switched. phases A and C, respectively.
Table 1 – Power factor for each phase before and after the capacitor bank As discussed above, the amount of reactive power necessary
energizing to achieve the unity power factor is less than the capacitor bank
Phase
Power factor before Power factor after the size. Using (1), these values are computed as 113.7, 163.6, and
the switching switching 139.5 kvar for phases A, B, and C, respectively. Although the
A 0.9559 (lagging) 0.9804 (leading) injection of additional reactive power does not significantly
B 0.8420 (lagging) 0.9922 (leading) reduce the power factor, it would be possible to reduce the costs
C 0.9361 (lagging) 0.9909 (leading) associated with this operation. For example, phase A requires
only 60% of the capacitor bank size to achieve the unity power
Table 2 and Table 3 contain the RMS values of voltage and factor.
current before and after the capacitor bank energizing for each IV. GENERAL ANALYSIS OF CAPACITOR ENERGIZING
phase. Note that the per unit voltage rise is the same in all
phases; this result is consistent with (4), since the voltage rise After discussing in details one capacitor bank energizing
does not depend on the load and the capacitor bank connected event in the previous section, this section analyzes the
in each phase has the same size. Phase B has the largest line performance of capacitor bank energizing (i. e., use of bank
current reduction, which could be predicted by (5), since this with fixed size and reactive power equally distributed between
phase experiences the largest variation in the power factor. the 3 phases). The dataset is composed of 72 energizing events,
covering the months from March to July 2015.
Table 2 – RMS voltage before and after the capacitor bank energizing
Voltage before the Voltage after the Increase The first aspect analyzed is the amount of reactive power
Phase necessary to achieve a unity power factor. This computation is
switching (kV) switching (kV) (%)
A 14.96 14.99 0.27 based on the measured power factor before the capacitor
B 14.97 15.01 0.27 switching and is computed by setting 𝜃𝑛𝑒𝑤 = cos −1 𝑝𝑓𝑛𝑒𝑤 = 0
C 15.00 15.04 0.27 in (1). Fig. 3 represents the values computed for phases A, B,
and C of each event, respectively; the total required reactive
power ranges from 266 kvar to 500 kvar. Note: the energizing
events are sorted in the ascending order of the total reactive

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power. This approach was chosen to facilitate the visualization
and has no special meaning for the interpretation of the data.
Figure 3 – Reactive power necessary to achieve a unity power factor
It is clear that there is a large difference between the ideal
reactive power values for each phase; therefore, considering
only one phase to size the capacitor bank can result in the
problems discussed previously: one or some of the phases
operate with a leading power factor or with a power factor
below the preset minimum value to avoid the additional penalty
charges.
In fact, while phases A and C are operating at relatively
large power factors, phase B has a poor power factor for most
of the data analyzed, as can be seen in Figure 4.
Figure 4 – Power factor in each phase before the bank energizing
Another aspect analyzed is the possibility of having a larger
reduction in the power system losses (similar behavior for the
line current reduction) if a higher power factor is achieved. The
losses in each phase are estimated using (6), and the best loss
reduction is obtained by setting 𝑝𝑓𝑛𝑒𝑤 = 1. As the losses are
proportional to the squared RMS current, the computed loss
reduction is the weighted arithmetic mean loss reduction %∆𝑙,
given as
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2
𝐼𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑠 2
∙ %∆𝑙𝑎 + 𝐼𝑏𝑟𝑚𝑠 2
∙ %∆𝑙𝑏 + 𝐼𝑐𝑟𝑚𝑠 ∙ %∆𝑙𝑐
%∆𝑙 = 2 2 2
(7)
𝐼𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑠 + 𝐼𝑏𝑟𝑚𝑠 + 𝐼𝑐𝑟𝑚𝑠
where %∆𝑙𝑎 , %∆𝑙𝑏 , and %∆𝑙𝑐 are the loss reduction in phases
A, B, and C, respectively; this equation assumes that the
resistance is the same for all 3 phases.
Using the ideal amount of reactive power for each phase
certainly decreases the power system losses; the average loss
reduction in this case is 10.07%, while the reduction obtained
by using the 600 kvar bank is 6.86%. Moreover, one of the
events has an increase in the power system losses. It happens
because the capacitor bank is large enough to move the current
waveform such that the absolute phase angle between the
fundamental voltage and current waveforms increases, and the
current leads the voltage.
V. RESIZING OF THE CAPACITOR BANK
Considering the discussion of the previous section, it is clear
that the capacitor bank currently used is oversized for a given
feeder. This section describes the procedure adopted to resize
the capacitor bank. The new capacitor bank should satisfies the
following requirements:
 The power factor should not decrease after the energizing;
this would happen if the capacitor bank is large enough to create
a leading power factor lower than the lagging power factor;
 All phases should operate at or above the minimum preset
power factor;
 The reduction in power system losses (or, equivalently,
the line current reduction) should be optimized;
 The number of leading power factor should be as
minimum as possible.
The criteria are analyzed considering capacitors banks
ranging from 0 to 200 kvar/phase, incrementing 5 kvar between
consecutive scenarios. Fig. 5 illustrates the behavior of these
criteria for different sizes of the capacitor bank, which are
discussed in the next paragraphs.
The estimated power factor after the energizing is computed
by (1), considering the original power factor and the measured
active power. Fig. 5.A represents the number of events which
would have a decrease in the power factor after the energizing;
according to this figure, the injection of reactive power in each
phase should not be above 155 kvar.
As discussed previously, a unity power factor represents the
ideal scenario; however, high power factor values are sufficient
to achieve the desired improvements. This study consider 0.95
as the desired minimum power factor. Fig. 5.B depicts the
number of scenarios where the predicted new power factor is
below the minimum, showing that the new bank should inject
between 85 kvar and 155 kvar in each phase.
Fig. 5.C represents the average reduction in power losses
due to the capacitor bank energizing; note that the percent
reduction is optimized in the range of interest, i. e., between 85
kvar and 155 kvar, corresponding to a loss reduction between 9
and 10%.

Figure 5 – Parameters used to resize the capacitor bank
Fig. 5.D shows that the number of leading power factors
increases with the size of the capacitor bank; therefore, in order
to keep this number as small as possible, the new capacitor bank
is chosen as the minimum size that still meets the four criteria
presented at the beginning of this section.
After all considerations and adopting the typical reactive
power ratings given in [1], it is proposed that the new capacitor
bank is rated at 100 kvar per phase, i. e., half of the size of the
currently used capacitor bank. Note that, according to (2), this
capacitor bank is still able to inject the minimum 85 kvar even
if the terminal-to-terminal RMS voltage is 92% of the rated
value.
VI. FINAL REMARKS
Besides using an oversized capacitor bank, the previous
analysis shows that considering only traditional switching
control techniques (such as time, temperature, voltage, and
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current) is not enough to avoid the overcompensation during the
power factor correction. This section provides an overview of
an algorithm designed to improve the bank switching control,
which overrides the current techniques.
After receiving the instruction to energize the capacitor
bank, a power quality monitor collects voltage and current data,
and compute the power factor and losses. If the power factor is
already above the preset minimum, there is no need to switch
on the bank. However, if the power factor needs to be improved,
the losses after the energizing are estimated (assuming the
capacitor bank size is known), and the bank is switched on only
if the losses do not increase.
This algorithm can be used to switch on the entire bank or
to control each phase independently. In fact, as the system is
unbalanced, with different reactive power flows in each phase,
it is expected that a single phase control will yield better results.
Another approach is to use smaller capacitor banks
connected close to each other, which are sequentially energized
according to the operation conditions of the system. This
technique allows the system to operate at the desired power
factor for a wider range of scenarios, as it is possible to inject
variable amount of reactive power into the system using only
fixed-size capacitor banks.
The discussion in this paper also highlights the importance
of frequent assessment of the system operation. As the load
changes over time, the capacitor bank designed in the past may
not be adequate for the present conditions, and its substitution
may cost less than the losses associated with an under- or over-
sized bank.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully thank 3MTM for providing the power
quality monitor data.
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