The Power Factor Factor

"How much are we paying for electrical penalties?"

"What?"  the plant manager was caught off guard.

"Can I show you something?""

In the interest of finding meaningful significant opportunities to benefit my employer, I was always on the look out.  I was constantly evaluating systems and machines.  A great advantage of an ever expanding education is the expansion of your opportunities. 

During my college days, we learned a little bit about this concept of Power Factor.  It is one of the most significant metrics of efficient electrical power.  When the current lags the voltage, it takes more power to do the same amount of work.  It's like driving your car uphill, you still get where you are going, but you use more gas.

This effect is very significant at factories that use a lot of power.  They can afford to go to great expenses to "level" the power factor.  Not only do they reduce their usage, but they avoid penalties levied by the power company tacked on to cover higher transmission costs.

I was a newby when I first recognized the systems at the plant were sorely in disrepair.  My first inquiry went to the senior electricians there.  They were all too familiar with what I was talking about.  They had made it known to the chiefs, the chiefs had little interest in what the scouts found.  The problem persisted for years.

Undeterred, I thought that maybe I could deliver a novel approach?  Maybe I could explain it in better layman terms?  It was obviously a big contribuition to be made to our cost of production.  Surely, the chiefs would take interest if they fully understook the impact?

As a newby, I was optimistic about developing a progressively improving working relationship with my new boss.  Surely, this was the sort of thing that he hired me for?

I gave the problem a lot of thought.  Knowing that the electricians had already brought it up, but failed to sell an idea - I dug out old textbooks and researched the internet.  I wanted to  be well prepared for challenges.  I wanted to sell the idea, but careful not to go too far being the FNG.

The next day, I asked my boss if we could talk.  He invited me to his office.  I didn't beat around the bush about what I had found.  Knowing that he didn't have an electrical background, I thought I had dumbed it down enough to plainly understand.

He thanked me for bringing it to his attention and indicated that he had no prior knowledge of the situation.  He promptly dismissed me to go perform some menial task.

After my departure, he called in his confidante.  The two went far back as friends and workmates.  It was rumored that he held some kind of electrical license in a far away strange state. 

My discussions with the boss's right hand man usually left me walking away shaking my head.  He delighted in telling stories about how stupid the electricians that worked for him were.  I couldn't relate to him, but felt very sorry for the poor guys under his direction.

It didn't come as a surprise that the issue died in his office.  I would have been surprised if his buddy had even heard of power factor.  It would be a long time before I had another opportunity to bring the subject up again.

It was during a scheduled down day and I found myself alone in the MCC room with the plant manager.  He was looking straight up at overhead conduit runs and I startled him with my question:

"How much are we paying for power factor penalties?"

"What?"

He followed me to the non-functioning apparatus.  I explained to him the purpose of this big machine with the large footprint.  Why it was occupying its space in our limited spacial room.  He seemed to take some interest.

The next thing I saw was my boss and his right hand hustling on their new top priority.  They never said a word to me or asked any of the payroll electricians a single question.  They hired outside constractors and consultants over the matter.  We were all curious, but the whole affair was cloaked in secrecy. 

Eventually, we got some new major hardware.  Although, it was never fully activated!?  It was about a year later when I petitioned my direct supervisor for a chance to bring it on line.  I found that the system was automatically shutting down because of detected harmonics being out of spec.  My boss instructed me to over-ride it, which I reluctantly did - and we were finally out of penalty!

I bumped into the plant manager in the same place some couple of years later.  I thought it safe to ask him for some closure to my curiosity.

"How much was that problem costing us?"

His vague and indirect response was still cloaked in secrecy...