Reactive power - Reactive Generator research from GotoLuc - discussion thread

[MarkE]

Farmhand it sounds like we are in violent agreement. 

The folks who believe that they can get something out of the power utility cheaper or for free by using reactive networks will learn one way or another that just isn't so.

[forest]

MarkE


Isn't that one of the reasons why Tesla invented curious circuit which electronic gurus spoiled forming DC-DC converters ? You take a source DC power or AC if you wish, the procedure is almost the same. You shunt source with a coil or solenoid of very large inductance so the power taken is minimal, you then open connection in special moment (in case of AC at the peak of voltage) and charge capacitor with inductive flyback like in DC-DC converter. However when next step is to shunt power source again the same time capacitor is shorted to coil of low resistance, low inductance and so on formin high Q-factor tank circuit. Energy is re-used few times in secondary ringing down oscilaltions. let's take 230V/50hz AC source and short at zero crossing while break at every 5ms using the transformer high inductance of more then 20H.
Do you think in such setup reactive power returned back to power company is minimized ? I appreciate any comment I don't state  I discovered something knew...

[MarkE]

MarkE


Isn't that one of the reasons why Tesla invented curious circuit which electronic gurus spoiled forming DC-DC converters ? You take a source DC power or AC if you wish, the procedure is almost the same. You shunt source with a coil or solenoid of very large inductance so the power taken is minimal, you then open connection in special moment (in case of AC at the peak of voltage) and charge capacitor with inductive flyback like in DC-DC converter. However when next step is to shunt power source again the same time capacitor is shorted to coil of low resistance, low inductance and so on formin high Q-factor tank circuit. Energy is re-used few times in secondary ringing down oscilaltions. let's take 230V/50hz AC source and short at zero crossing while break at every 5ms using the transformer high inductance of more then 20H.
Do you think in such setup reactive power returned back to power company is minimized ? I appreciate any comment I don't state  I discovered something knew...

Forest, Tesla conducted many experiments so unless you identify a specific experiment I cannot see what Tesla had to say about it that would indicate his intentions. 

I reiterate:  Reactive circuit elements store and release energy.  Reactive power is power that gets stored in a load before being returned to the source.  Any energy that is not returned to the source is real.  If we construct a tuned circuit with a high quality inductor and capacitor that circuit will have a high Q, which means it stores a high percentage of the energy that moves through it each cycle.  That is a highly resonant tank.  Any energy that we draw out each cycle lowers the Q.  It doesn't matter when we take the energy out.  It is the fact that we remove energy and how much energy we take out each cycle that determines the Q.  Directly answering your question:  If you take a 20H inductor and put it into a circuit like you are talking about, all the energy you direct to your load through your switching circuit gets replenished by the line and appears to the power company as real energy / power.

[forest]

Aha, I see..  you state that energy is doing work so case closed, it can't be re-used in tank circuit
However I state that power is doing work and by releasing the same energy as a larger power spike in tank circuit we are re-using the same energy many times in oscillations... not a magic just more efficient usage of energy and because it is re-used while stored in load it is not returned to power supply immediately (if ever).
Sorry if that sounds like a totally crazy idea... I always thought why there is a return wire to the power station and what is returned if energy is used and I found it easy to explain by water analogy - the same water is returned just without initial pressure.
If so then pressure is the key and if we can isolate a small chamber when pressure is used in low friction mode in cycle then it can do a lot more work in oscillations then by using it once. It's like using CFL lamp instead of incandescent one : less heat (in this case less flow of current from the  power station) just more light (more work locally done).  Another example is pendulum - here the friction is limited to the one point of attachment to the wall and the same energy will do more work then just pushing the same mass against frictional surface....

[MarkE]

Forest, perhaps this will help:

A purely reactive circuit has no resistance.  If we apply a pure sine wave to such a circuit, the impedance is all reactive and equal to:  |Z| = |X| =  Xl - Xc.  For X>0 the current lags the voltage by 90 degrees, and for X<0 the current leads the voltage by 90 degrees.  In both cases: the source delivers energy to the circuit for two quarters of a cycle, and the circuit drives energy back into the source for the other two quarters each cycle.

If you shut off everything in your house except a big transformer with no load, then the only load will be the transformer's magnetizing inductance in series with the primary resistance.  For any good transformer the primary resistance will be very small compared to Xl at 60Hz, so what you will be looking at is almost completely the primary magnetizing inductance.  If you hook this up, then your power meter will barely move because of the: energy in / energy out balance across each cycle. 

If you then connect a power resistor to the secondary of the transformer all current that flows through the resistor cancels flux in the transformer primary, and for a good transformer, the resistance reflects across the primary by the square of the turns, IE step-down ratio.  You can connect whatever resistors you like that are within the transformer's ratings and watch what that does to your power meter.

So there you have it:  Reactive power = storage, and anything you place in parallel with that storage that actually uses or otherwise consumes power consumes real power, and is registered by your power meter.