Ed MacLaren

09-19-2003, 12:12 AM
This is how I used to explain it to my student apprentices.

Compare the delivery of electrical energy to a motor, and the delivery of milk to a home, in the days
when refillable glass bottles were used.

The bottles were esential to the transaction, but were not paid for or consumed by the customer. They
were washed and returned to the dairy each day. The load the milkman had to carry to the house
consisted of both milk and glass.

Milk = Watts, (True Power) the product consumed and paid for by the customer.

Glass = Vars, (Reactive power) required to supply the magnetic field, returned to the power generator
each cycle, not consumed or paid for by the customer.

Milk + Glass = VA, (Apparent Power) the vector sum of the Watts and Vars, which is what the
transformers and conductors have to carry.

kW is the unit of real power & kVA is the unit of Apparent power.

Apparent Power= real power + reactive power

Here is what I hope is a bit more intuitive explanation:

With alternating current electricity, the direction of current flow rapidly alternates between one
direction and the other and the voltage rapidly alternates polarity between one direction and the
other. That means that unless the polarity of the voltage reverses at the same instant that the
direction of the current reverses, the direction of power flow (voltage times current) can also
alternate directions.

If the effective values (RMS values) of voltage and current are multiplied together, the result, the VA
(or kVA for 1000’s of VA) is called the apparent power. The VA (or kVA) is the total power that
appears to be flowing, but it includes both the net power that is flowing in one direction and the
amount of power that is circulating back and forth between the source and the load. The net power
that is flowing from the source to the load is called the real power, watts (W) or kilowatts (kW). The
power that is circulating between the source and the load is called the reactive volt-amperes, VARs
or kVARs.

The relationship between the kW, kVA and kVAR is kVA squared = kW squared + kVAR squared.
Another way to express this relationship is to say that the kW = kVA X power factor. The power
factor (pf) is a number between +1 and -1. If pf = 1, all of the power is flowing from the source to the
load as is does when the load is purely resistive and does not include any elements like capacitors
and inductors that can store energy momentarily and return energy to the source. If pf is -1, all of
the power is flowing from the load to the source, the roles of source and load are reversed. If pf is
between +1 and -1, some of the power is circulating. Pf can be calculated as the consine of the angle
between the voltage and current waveforms.