Power factor interpretation

[CSH12]

Hi @ALL,

Does anyone knows how to interprete the power factor data?
I have had a look at it since yesterday and saw this:

I'm not really sure what that means to me?
Normally I would assume that the power factor is a number between 0...1 or 0...100% but why it is possible to have it in both directions?
And also in the period of receiving energy from grid (1:30 to 7:30 am), why it's having round about 50%?

My originally question for thinking about the power factor was: why the battery power (DC) is higher than the inverter power (house consumtion in AC). At best looking to the period from e.g. from 0:00 to 1:30 am (distance to 0 is not equidistant)

--> maybe there is a context with power factor and have I got to multiply the power factor to the battery's DC power so that it matches? but actually I don't see the context if there is one...

If anyone has some answers, I would appreciate to know.

Thanks
Chris

[WillCodeForCats]

Power factor is simply the ratio of W (real power) to VA (apparent power). Positive is leading, negative is lagging, and the middle point is "unity" power factor.

Usually you see power factor represented as 1-0 and with 0.80 as a nominal value for rating things like VA to W on a UPS. The inverters return +- 100-0% so you can just divide it by 100 to see the "traditional" number (i.e. 80% is 0.80, 100% is unity). Power factor doesn't have units since it's a ratio. The graph unfortunately looks weird because in this application it PF should be centered around 100 (100/100 = 1 unity) in the middle and not 0.

At very large industrial scale utilities often require the consumer to install power factor correction. At residential levels it's irrelevant other than a fun statistic. Poor power factors are energy wasted (var).

Active power (W, watts) is the "good" part that's doing useful work. Reactive power (var, volt-amps reactive) is lost power. Apparent power (VA, volt-amps) is the total demand power. Since power factor is your ratio of working to lost power, a PF of 0.5 (or 50%) means it's doing something very inefficient during that time. If you were to turn on the VA and var sensors you would probably see that VA is double the W.

• https://www.fluke.com/en-us/learn/blog/power-quality/power-factor-formula
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor#Lagging,_leading_and_unity_power_factors

[CSH12]

Hi @WillCodeForCats,

Thanks for the quick reply and the explanation
Think I got it (mostly ;-) )

In my example from 0:00 to 1:30 it would mean:

• PF = -18.xx% (1 - 18.xx%/100%) = 0.81
• B1_DC_Power * PF ~= I1_AC_Power --> more or less B1_AC_Power as real power

I'm asking because the "House Consumtion" is shown as the B1_DC_Power in the energy flow - but that is not the correct "House Consumption power

If I click on the House Consumtion I just see a power of ~4xx W in that case because of the PF lag. Otherwise it is not the same working point and I compare apples with pears.

(this might be also a good hint for your config template example. The data are not the same base. For the powerflow it has to be adapted)

Thanks
Chris

[WillCodeForCats]

I don't actually use any templates with my setup or have batteries, so the templates were contributed but I haven't personally looked at or tested them.

Power factor of 18% is 0.18 in the 1-0 scale.

[CSH12]

Ok. was just a hint. maybe it will help others... I can see if I'm able to comment that. Let's see.

but that 18% resp. 0.18 is not plausible to me.
then battery DC power has to be much bigger (~2260W). this will result in ~411W Inverter AC Power with a PF of 0.18.
And also an efficiency of 18% would be very poor for a new battery ;-)
82% would be more realistic... don't you also think so?

[WillCodeForCats]

Start tracking your AC VA sensor and compare it to AC power (watts).

Sensors sensor.solaredge_i1_ac_va and sensor.solaredge_i1_ac_power