Electrical Concepts Energy University Course Transcript



Slide 1: Electrical Concepts Welcome to Electrical Concepts Slide 2: Welcome For best viewing results, we recommend that you maximize your browser window now. The screen controls allow you to navigate through the eLearning experience. Using your browser controls may disrupt the normal play of the course. Click the paperclip icon to download supplemental information for this course. Click the Notes tab to read a transcript of the narration. Slide 3: Objectives At the completion of this course, you should be able to Describe major electrical units Explore concepts of single and three phase power supply Explain Ohms Law for resistance and power Distinguish between real and reactive power Define load factor for a building Calculate motor input and output power using the electric motor efficiency formula Slide 4: Introduction This course provides a summary or refresher on some major electrical concepts that you will encounter when working on energy efficiency. It assumes that you have a general background knowledge of simple physics. Another pre-requisite for this course is a fundamental knowledge of the units of energy and the concepts of energy versus power. If you do not have this knowledge, please first complete our class on Fuels and energy value analysis. Slide 5: Energy Versus Power The first concept well examine, is energy versus power. Energy is the ability to do work. For example, if I move a rock a distance of three feet, or one metre, I used a certain amount of energy to do that work. In countries using the US customary measures, energy is often expressed in British Thermal Units. A BTU is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of liquid water from 60 to 61 degrees Fahrenheit at a constant pressure of one atmosphere. Its about the same amount of energy as you get from burning a wooden match. Because the BTU is a small amount of energy, multipliers such as MBTU or MMBTU are used to express energy at higher levels. The letter M is the Roman numeral for 1,000, so one MBTU is equal to 1,000 BTU of energy. 1,000,000 BTU is expressed as MMBTU a thousand times a thousand. However, you have to take care, because in the standard international system, M means mega and is a multiplier of 1,000,000. So you may run into cases
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 where M means one thousand (as in MBTU) or where it means one million (as in Megawatts). Check to be sure. The standard international system chiefly uses joules to measure energy. A joule is about the amount of energy needed to lift an apple to a height of 1 metre. Again, thats not very much energy, so measures such as kilojoules (kj) and Megajoules (Mj) are common. 1 BTU is equivalent to fractionally more than 1.055 kilojoules. Slide 6: Energy Versus Power Power is how fast work gets done. It is the rate at which energy is consumed. Moving one rock per minute uses a certain amount of energy and hence power. Moving 10 rocks per minute will use more energy and hence more power. Lets say I move 200 rocks in 15 minutes. How much energy does that use, and how much power? Lets assume it takes 10 BTUs to move one rock Power = work done / time required The energy needed for 200 rocks is 200 rocks x 10 BTUs per rock = 2000 BTUs. That's the work done. To achieve that in 15 minutes I will need power of 2000 BTUs divided by 15 minutes. 2000 divided by 15 is 133 BTUs per minute. So the energy needed is 2000 BTUs, but the power needed is 133 BTUs per minute. Slide 7: Energy is Comprised of WAGES To fully account for energy use, you must consider all types of energy including water, air, gas, electric and steam. An easy way to remember these is using the acronym, W.A.G.E.S. These different forms may be measured in different ways: Measures of the energy content of the fuel (such as BTUs or joules) Measures of the mass of the fuel (such as pounds or kilograms) Measures of the volume of the fuel (such as gallons, litres, cubic feet and cubic metres) Lets explore these further. Slide 8: Energy is Comprised of WAGES Water includes: Domestic potable water Domestic hot water Heating hot water Chilled water Waste water Typically water is measured by volume. In the US, the customary measure is by gallon. In countries using the standard international system litres are used.

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 Slide 9: Energy is Comprised of WAGES Air refers to compressed air. This is treated as a type of energy, because compressed air has the ability to do work, for example, by powering pneumatic tools. Compressed air is generally measured in standard cubic feet per minute (SCFM) or cubic metres per second (m s-). That air would be at a defined pressure, usually set in pounds per square inch (PSI) or kilopascals (kPa). Slide 10: Energy is Comprised of WAGES Gas refers to natural gas. Natural gas is a primary energy source. This means that it is a fuel that contains energy that has not undergone any conversion. A primary energy source can be converted to a secondary energy source such as electricity. Under the G for Gas in the WAGES acronym, we also include other forms of primary energy, such as coal, oil, gasoline and ethanol. It also includes gasses used in manufacturing processes such as oxygen, argon, CO2 and nitrogen. Gas is often measured by volume, in cubic feet (ft) or cubic metres (m). You may also see Ccf. This means 100 ft The first C is the Roman numeral for 100, and cf is cubic feet. Similarly, an Mcf is 1000 ft. Liquid fuels like oil and gasoline may also be measured by volume, using gallons or litres. Crude oil is sold in barrels. A barrel of oil is 42 US gallons or approximately 159 litres. Coal is generally sold by mass. In the US customary measure system, a ton is equal to 2000 lb. However, a metric tonne is 1000 kg. A US ton is a little over 0.9 of a metric tonne. Sometimes these fuels may be measured not by their mass or volume, but by their energy content. Gas for example may be sold in therms. A therm is 10 to the 5th power or 100,000 British Thermal Units, or BTUs. So when you buy a therm of natural gas, you are getting an amount of gas that has an energy content of 100,000 BTUs. What volume of gas would that be? Well, one cubic foot of gas contains about 1,000 BTUs. So a therm of natural gas would have a volume of about 100 cubic feet. Looking at using standard international units, a volume of 1 cubic metre of natural gas contains 37,257 kJ. Slide 11: Energy is Comprised of WAGES Other fuels like oil and gasoline contain energy to varying degrees. The download sheet gives examples. How do we know how much energy is contained in different fuel types? Fuel tables are published giving the values. But we have to be careful, because there are different ways of determining the energy content. The energy content may be expressed as Higher Heating Value, or Lower Heating Value. Higher heating value (HHV) is found by burning a small sample of fuel in an oxygen environment and recording the heat released. Combustion of the fuel usually results in some water vapor formed in the hydrogen and oxygen. Higher heating values include the energy contained in that water vapor. Lower heating value subtracts the heat associated with the water changing state, since in practice, you generally
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 cant access that energy when you burn the fuel. In some countries, such as the US, higher heating values are normally used, while in other regions such as Europe its more common to use the lower heating value. Slide 12: Energy is Comprised of WAGES Electricity is measured by energy content. In both the US and SI systems, electrical power is typically measured in watts, or more commonly kilowatts. A watt is equivalent to 1 joule / second. . Remember that Power = work done (or energy) / time required 1 kilowatt is 1000 joules or work performed in a period of 1 second; or more simply, 1000 joules per second kilowatt-hours (kWh) are a measure of electrical energy consumption. Lets say you have an electrical motor rated to draw 50 kW, and it runs for half an hour. How much energy does it consume? Power = Energy/Time. Therefore, Energy = Power x Time Therefore the energy consumed = 50 kW x 0.5 hours = 25 kWh. If the same motor runs for 2 hours then the energy consumed is 50kW x 2.0 hours = 100 kWh. 1 kWh = 3412 BTU. Slide 13: Energy is Comprised of WAGES Lastly, steam is generally measured by its heat content in therms, or kilojoules. Slide 14: Efficiency We have seen a variety of units used to measure fuels and energy. Unfortunately, when energy gets used, its not quite so simple. Remember when we discussed gas, we were speaking of primary energy sources. When you use that gas to heat your building or perform work, some of the energy is typically lost as it is converted from the primary source to the end use energy. Thats also true of electricity the amount of energy that an electrical motor consumes will not all be output as motion. Some is lost as heat. This is why its important to be aware of the efficiency of your machines and processes. A useful equation is: efficiency = output energy/input energy If you are converting gas into energy, for example in an engine, and the input energy is 100 BTUs per minute, while the output of the engine is 80 BTUs per minute, then your engine is 80% efficient. Typically, mechanical devices are rated in terms of maximum power output. Electrical devices are usually rated by the maximum power input. Lets move on to discuss some commonly-used electrical terms. Slide 15: Energy Units Some of electricitys basic concepts include current, voltage, resistance and power. Lets explore these terms now. In order to illustrate these concepts, we will use a garden hose as an illustration.

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 Water will flow through the hose at a slow rate, or a fast rate, depending on how far the faucet is opened. Current flows through a wire or conductor like water through a garden hose. Always flowing from negative to positive, current is measured in amperes or amps (A). Voltage is the difference in electrical potential between two points in a circuit. It is the pressure behind a currents flow through a circuit, and is measured in volts (V). Current is controlled by the faucet position. The faucet is either more open or less open at any given time. The current can also be controlled by an increase or loss of water pressure (voltage). The amount of water that moves through a hose in gallons, or litres, per second can be compared to the quantity of electrons that flow per second through a conductor as measured in amperes. Slide 16: Energy Units Resistance determines how much current will flow through a component. Resistors are used to control voltage and current levels. A very high resistance allows a small amount of current to flow. A very low resistance allows a large amount of current to flow. Resistance is measured in ohms. Our garden hose analogy can also help to explain resistance. Consider a garden hose which is partially restricted by a large rock. The weight of the rock will slow the flow of water in the garden hose. We can say that the restricted garden hose has more resistance to water flow than does an unrestricted garden hose. If we want to get more water out of the hose, we would need to turn up the water pressure at the faucet. The same is true of electricity. Materials with low resistance let electricity flow easily. Materials with higher resistance require more voltage to make the electricity flow. Slide 17: Ohms Law Omega is used as the symbol for Ohm. Ohm's Law defines the relationships between voltage, current, and resistance. One ohm is the resistance value through which one volt will maintain a current of one ampere. More simply, Ohms Law means: A steady increase in voltage, in a circuit with constant resistance, produces a constant linear rise in current A steady increase in resistance, in a circuit with constant voltage, produces a progressively weaker current Here are the three ways to mathematically express this relationship. I is the current in amperes travelling through the resistance. The V is the potential difference across the resistance in volts, and R is the conductors resistance in Ohms. Slide 18: The Power Equation The power equation for electricity is P (watts) = V (volts) x I (amps) Therefore P also = I R, and P = V/ R Slide 19: Power Distribution Alternating current electrical power is distributed in phases. Two common methods to transmit power are singlephase and three-phase. Single-phase power refers to a system in which all voltages operate at the same frequency. Single phase power produces a sine wave like the one illustrated here.

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 In a three-phase system, three circuit conductors carry three currents of the same frequency. The difference is that the three currents experience their peaks at different times. An advantage three-phase power has is it gives constant power transfer over each current cycle. It also enables a rotating magnetic field to occur in an electric motor. This is the sine wave associated with three-phase power. Slide 20: Utility Charges Understanding the difference between electrical power versus electrical consumption is important as you learn more about different types of equipment in your building or facility, and how they can be optimized to reduce your electrical bill. Utilities will charge not only for consumption, but also for peak power, known as peak demand. Consumption is the total amount of energy used during a period such as a week or month, measured in kWh. Peak demand is the peak energy consumption during any single demand interval during that period. For example, if the demand interval is 15 minutes, and the consumption in that period was 2000 kWh Power = energy/time = 2000 kWh/0.25 h = 8000 kW of demand in that interval

These are two separate charges on the bill, and demand charges can be hefty, with an impact that lasts for many billing cycles. You can learn more about how consumption and demand are factored into the bill in our courses on Energy Rate Structures.

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 Slide 21: Real and Reactive Power In addition to charging for peak demand, some utilities charge for kvars. What are kvars? They are a measurement of the reactive power used. The letters VA stand for volt-amps and the R stands for reactive. Remember the power equation P (watts) = V (volts) x I (amps). When we apply this equation to reactive power, we dont use watts, we use volt-amps as the unit instead. Some types of equipment need reactive power as well as the usual, real power. Real power is used by the equipment to do work. Reactive power may be required to provide a magnetic field. Slide 22: Power Factor A site that uses a lot of kvars is sometimes described as having a low power factor. Utility companies typically only track a sites power factor if they are using somewhere over 500kW of real power, though this may change from city to city dependent upon how maxed out that areas power grid is. Power factor is a number between 0 and 1 that indicates how efficiently power is being used. A good power factor is 0.9 to 1. 1 is a perfect power factor and while ideal, it rarely occurs. Utility companies can penalize if power factor is lower than their ideal standard (typically lower than 85% or 90%). Any power factor less than 1 can incur a penalty. Kvars are used to reflect a power factor penalty in a utility bill. Slide 23: The Power Triangle This is the power triangle. It shows the relationship of the three components.

 KVA is sometimes called apparent power. The formula for this is the square root of kilowatts squared plus kvar squared kW is sometimes called real power. The formula for real power is kVA times the cosine of the angle And KVAR is called reactive power. The formula for kvar is kVA times the sin of the angle. The representation you see here is called a phasor or vector diagram. Its used to represent the phase this way to aide in understanding. The phasor length is proportional to the magnitude and the angle represents the phase relative to the current passing through the resistor. To understand power factor, visualize a person pulling a railroad car down a railroad track. Because the railroad ties are uneven, the person must pull the car from the side of the track. This causes the person to pull the car at an angle
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 to the direction of the cars travel. The power required to move the car down the track is the working (real) power. The effort of the person pulling is the total (apparent) power. Because of the angle of pull, not all of the persons effort is used to move the car down the track. The car will not move sideways; therefore, the sideways pull of is wasted effort or nonworking (reactive) power. The angle of the persons pull is related to power factor, which is defined as the ratio of real (working) power to apparent (total) power. If the person is closer to the center of the track, the angle of side pull decreases and the real power approaches the value of the apparent power. Therefore, the ratio of real power to apparent power (the power factor) approaches 1. As the power factor approaches 1, the reactive (nonworking) power approaches 0. Slide 24: What Causes Low Power Factor? Lets try to see whats going on electrically to cause low power factor.

 In an electrical system, volts and amps both ideally have a sinusoidal waveform. If the current and voltage waveforms are aligned, and reach their maximum amplitude at the same time, the current is said to be in phase with the voltage and no kvars are present. However if the voltage reaches its maximum amplitude before the current, kvars are said to be lagging. On the other hand, if the current reaches its maximum amplitude before the voltage, kvars are said to be leading. Slide 25: What Causes Low Power Factor? These leading and lagging cases are based on a phase angle shift between the current and voltage due to an inductive load such as motors or transformers, or a capacitive load such as capacitors or a synchronous motor.

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 Sites can install equipment locally to provide all the kvars that are required. However if they dont do this, the utility will charge penalties for providing the kvars to the site. Slide 26: Power Factor There are two types of power factor. They are: Displacement power factor Total (True) power factor Displacement Power Factor is equal to the displacement angle between the current flowing in the load and the supply voltage. It is equal to the cosine of Phi. Capacitors can correct displacement power factor effects.

 Total power factor is a measure of kW divided by kVA and includes the effects of distortions known as harmonics. Its important to note that capacitors can only correct displacement not total power factor. You can learn more about this in our course on Power Factor & Harmonics. Slide 27: Calculating Power Usage Here are some useful equations that will help you calculate the power usage for single and 3 phase power.
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 The formula associated with single phase power is P = V x I x PF. For 3-phase power, the formula is P = 3 x V x I x PF.

 To download a diagram of the power triangle with the formulas we just discussed, please click the paperclip icon in the lower right corner of your browser. Slide 28: Load Factor Now we are going to learn about load factor. Load factor is the ratio of the actual consumption of a building or factory to its consumption if peak demand had been
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 constant through the period. Load factor = Actual consumption for period / Consumption at peak demand for period If you imagine the energy use of the building over a period of a month, the load factor would be the blue area, divided by the green area. A high load factor means that the building has a smooth usage profile, without unusual spikes in demand. If all the equipment in the building was turned on and never turned off, the load factor would be 1, or 100%. A low load factor means that occasionally the power usage is very high but at other times it is very low. This building had a big spike. This makes the green area big, and will result in a low load factor. For the utility provider, this results in inefficient use of plant and capital, since they have to maintain generation capacity to deal with the occasional peaks, even though most of the year that capacity may not be required. Load factor can be calculated using this formula. Well consider a month, although the formula can easily be changed to apply to a year. Lets try an example. What would be the load factor of a building that consumed 780,000kWh during September, with peak demand of 1,900 kW? Try doing the calculation, and then click play to see the answer. Slide 29: Load Factor Your calculation should result in a load factor of 57%. Slide 30: Electric Motor Efficiency Lets move on to look at motors. Typically, mechanical devices are rated in terms of maximum power output. Electrical devices are usually rated by the maximum power input. In the standard international system, the power output of motors is rated in kW, but in the US customary measurement its more often horsepower. This unit of measurement was originally used to express the output power of steam engines with the power of draft horses. Note that there are several definitions of the unit of horsepower, including the electrical horsepower, mechanical horsepower, metric horsepower, and boiler horsepower. In Energy University, when we discuss the output power of an electric motor in SI units, we use kilowatts, and when we are using US customary units or inch-pound units, we use the electrical horsepower, where one horsepower is equal to 746 watts. If you have the voltage, current rating, and power factor of the motor from the nameplate, you can find the input power with the formula P in kW = (V * I * PF * 3)/1000. This applies to three-phase motors. Slide 31: Electric Motor Efficiency If you know the output rating in kilowatts or horsepower, the efficiency, and load factor of the motor, you can find the input power with the following formula. Efficiency deals with how effectively the device converts input power to output power.
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 Efficiency = output power/input power Therefore input power = output power/efficiency If you have the output power in horsepower you will need to convert that into kW. Hence: input power = HP * 0.746/efficiency However this only applies if the motor is operating at full power. The load factor deals with whether the device is fully loaded, and operating at its maximum capability, or if it is only partly loaded. Load factor = actual loading of the motor/full load of the motor Hence: Inout power = (output power * load factor) / efficiency Input power = (HP * 0.746 * LF) / efficiency Be sure to download these formulas by clicking the paperclip icon in the lower right corner of your browser. Slide 32: Degree Days Another concept that you will find when dealing with energy measurement and benchmarking, and HVAC systems, is that of degree days. Degree day measurement is an absolute value difference of the daily mean temperature from a base temperature value. A higher value of degree days means that the weather was more severe (either hot or cold), and, more importantly, that more cooling or heating was probably needed to keep a space comfortable for its occupants. The base temperature used varies depending on the country and the agency performing the measurement. In the US 65F (18.3C ) is a common base for both heating and cooling degree day computations. In the UK 15.5 C (60 F) is often used. A days degree day value is the difference between the days mean temperature and the base value. The mean temperature is defined as the average of the maximum temperature and the minimum temperature. Days where the mean daily temperature is below the base temperature are said to have heating degree days (HDD). That means it was colder than the base, and heating was needed. Days where the mean daily temperature is above the base temperature are said to have cooling degree days (CDD). No single day can have non-zero values for both HDD and CDD (it has to be hotter or colder : it cant be both on the same day). HDD and CDD values are always expressed as positive values (or zero). In addition to using them as individual daily values, degree day values of each type may be summed over a period of days, such as a week or month, to represent the cumulative weather during that period. If we consider a single day, and the temperature difference was 5 degrees above base, that is 5 cooling degree days.
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 If we consider a week, and on each day, there was a temperature difference of 3 degrees above base, that would be 7 x 3 = 21 cooling degree days. Slide 33: Managing Units During Calculations As you work in energy efficiency, you will need to be able to combine formulas and convert between units. One method to avoid making errors while doing this is to set out all the terms in the equation, and ensure that when like terms are cancelled, the results on both sides of the equation are what you expected. Here's a simple example 1 kWh of electricity = 3412 BTUs 1 therm of gas = 100,000 BTUs How many kWh in 1 therm of gas? BTUs cancel with BTUs, giving a result of 29.3, with kWh on the top, and therms on the bottom. 29.3 kWh per therm of gas. If we had made a mistake with the conversions, the BTUs would not have cancelled out, or we would have ended up with therms on the top and kWh on the bottom, which was not what we were looking for. We would have been able to detect the problem and correct it before moving on.

 Slide 34: Managing Units During Calculations Here's a more advanced example: Consider a motor with the following details on the nameplate:

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 The output on the motor shaft reads 200 HP. It is a three-phase motor running at 460 volts and 228 amps. The nameplate efficiency is 93% at a full load, which would be 100%. We need to determine the power factor, given these conversions and formulas: 1 HP equals 0.746 kW Input power equals the product of horsepower times 0.746 times the load factor divided by the efficiency In a single phase system, power in Watts equals Volts (V) times amps (I). In a three phase system, the power in Watts equals 3 x volts times amps times the power factor With the conversion and formulas shown, we know HP, LF, efficiency, V and I from the information given, so we have everything we need to find the power factor. Here's our basic formula for motors. Here's the formula that replaces input power. Rearranging the terms allow us to calculate the power factor. Since we are given the motor parameters in volts, but the motor power equation is in kW, we need to ensure the volts are converted into kilovolts during the calculation Here's how the equation looks with the details added from the problem. HP is 200 HP. Efficiency is 0.93. The motor is at full load, so load factor is 1. We have 460 volts and 228 amps. Laying out the formula like this we can see that horsepower cancels with HP when we convert to kW, volts cancels with volts, and kilowatts cancels with kilovolts times amps. Cancelling all like terms and multiplying brings us to a power factor of 0.88. Slide 35: Running Cost Example Heres another example. Consider a 100 HP air compressor that runs continuously 24 hours per day. This machine is 90% efficient and is loaded at 70%. Assume that the facility is paying $80 per kW per year and $0.05 per kWh. The output on the motors shaft is 100 HP. Again, this motor is 460 volts and 228 amps. Lets determine the annual cost of operating the compressor. We already know that 1 HP is equal to 0.746 kW and that efficiency equals the output power in kW divided by the input power in kW. Therefore, it can be said that the input power is equal to the output power divided by the efficiency. For a motor loaded less than 100% this equation would need to be multiplied by the load factor. This would provide us with the power drawn. So to calculate the running costs, we would multiply the power drawn by the demand charges and add that to the power drawn times hours used times the consumption charges. The running cost equation can therefore be expressed as you see here. Cancelling like terms leaves us with our answer: $30,055.51 per year. Slide 36: Summary Now, lets summarize some of the information we have covered throughout this course. Voltage, current and resistance are related by Ohms Law V = RI Single-phase power refers to a system in which all voltages operate at the same frequency Three-phase power offsets the peak voltage and current waveforms across three circuit conductors providing constant power transfer over each current cycle Reactive power is required by some equipment to provide a magnetic field Power factor is a number between 0 and 1 that indicates how efficiently power is being used
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 The two types of power factor are: Displacement power factor Total (True) power factor Displacement Power Factor is equal to the displacement angle between the current flowing in the load and the supply voltage Total power factor is a measure of real power kW divided by apparent power kVA and includes the effects of harmonics The power triangle shows the relationship between apparent power, real power, and reactive power Slide 37: Summary Load factor is the ratio of the actual consumption of a building or factory to its consumption if peak demand had been constant through the period Single phase P kW = V x I x PF Three-phase power P kW = 3 x V x I x PF A degree day is a quantitative index that reflects demand for energy to heat or cool homes and businesses Slide 38: Thank you! Thank you for participating in this course.

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