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Hidden Cost in Energy Bills - How to Avoid Reactive Penalty?

Reactive penalties, which are often ignored while calculating energy costs, that many businesses are not even aware of, can cause extremely high costs. From production facilities to multi-branch retail chains, municipal service buildings to logistics centers, many businesses follow up these meticulously, but without an accurate energy monitoring system, they can constantly face reactive consumption fines. In this article, we will simply explain some technical terms such as reactive power and compensation systems and explain best practices in preventing reactive penalty, which is an important cost item. Reactive power is available in two forms: inductive and capacitive; It is continuously drawn by the systems and sent back to the network. While electric motors use inductive reactive power, systems such as LED lights and UPS need capacitive reactive power. In fact, since the drawn power is returned to the grid, there is no consumption, but because it limits the capacity of the power transmission lines, reactive cost, which is called reactive penalty, is reflected on the invoices in case of withdrawal of reactive power more than a certain level. In order to prevent these penalties, compensation panels are installed in the facilities and the necessary reactive power is provided in the facility. An example of a compensation panel is as follows:

If compensation is not applied correctly, these amounts can reach quite high figures. Although companies invest in compensation panels to prevent reactive penalties, incorrectly installed systems can incur penalties too. New machines and equipment added to the system, other than faulty installation, can change the reactive consumption characteristics of the relevant facility, and concurrently, in cases such as sticking of the contactor of the compensation panel or failure of the capacitors can result in reactive penalty. Therefore, it is very important to continuously monitor the reactive consumption of the system and to be informed with an alarm in case of excess. Trio Mobil IoT platform provides real-time reports and alarms, allowing you to be instantly informed about reactive overruns, preventing penalties from arising. Thus, reactive excesses, which we call hidden costs in energy bills, are eliminated.