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A New Paradigm in Power Quality for Powering Tactical Systems Adaptive Power Factor Correction (APFC™) by NOVA Power Solutions

New for 2021, NOVA Power Solutions is introducing adaptive power factor corrected input for its SRNT and SRHF family of systems. With this new paradigm, NOVA Power Solutions offers customers improved efficiency in the provisioning of electrical power for mission critical tactical applications. In shipboard and mobile generated small grid systems, this translates to lower fuel requirements and therefore longer on-station times and a lower degradation of the cable plant, reducing maintenance cycle time and cost. This will ultimately lead to increased operational availability.

Date: Issue 109 - August 2021

Most commercial electronic equipment contains some form of power factor correction, intended to ensure that a reasonably high power factor is maintained. However, these power factor correction circuits are typically fixed rather than adaptive, designed to optimize power factor only when the equipment is operating at a maximum electrical load. 

When the electrical load of this equipment decreases in the course of normal operations, the input power factor degrades significantly, and fixed power factor correction circuitry is not able to compensate for the lighter loading. This is the primary reason that NOVA Power Solutions engineers strongly recommend not over-provisioning a power protection solution, as the decrease in power factor translates to increased energy usage and higher costs.