Optimal Power Factor Correction for Inductive Load Using PIC

Power factor correction (PFC) is a technique to improve the stability and efficiency of the transmission network to reduce the costs charged to the customers by their electricity supplier. A PIC microcontroller based power factor correction has been designed. The paper deals with the hardware and software features of the power factor correction unit. The phase difference between the two signals is obtained by measuring the ON time ‘τ’ of the XOR gate and the time period ‘T’ of the signal using the two CCP module of PIC18F452 microcontroller. The power factor correction unit is designed for the measurement of power factor between 0 -1 for frequencies up to 500 Hz with an accuracy of ± 0.1. This involves measuring the power factor value from the load using PIC and sensors proper algorithm to determine and trigger sufficient switching capacitors in order to compensate excessive reactive components, thus bringing power factor near to unity and also monitoring the power factor changes in LCD as a result acquires higher efficiency and better quality AC output Power factor correction.