New penalties for capacitive reactive energy in Spain

CIRCUTOR reports on the recent approval of Circular 3/2020 of Spain's National Commission on Markets, the provisions of which will go into effect on 1 April 2021. Its implementation creates a new scenario in the area of power factor correction.

It establishes a penalty for injecting excess capacitive energy into the grid, commonly known as overcompensation, especially in tariff period 6 and for all consumers connected at a voltage in excess of 1 kV, meaning those who have their own power transformer.

The penalty will be applied on an hourly basis to all excess capacitive energy that exceeds a power factor of 0.98 capacitive. Expressed as a percentage, it means that on an hourly basis, the kvarC.h consumed must be less than 20% of the Kw.h. consumed. A charge of €0.05/kvarC.h is applied to excess reactive energy, similar to that currently charged for excess inductive reactive energy.

Period 6 always corresponds to: the 00:00 to 08:00 slot from Monday to Friday, and all day Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays. Note that this means around 51% of the total hours in a year.

During this period, less active energy will usually be consumed than in any other period, and therefore the chances of exceeding the consumption of the allowed kvarC.h are considerable. Consequently, there will be an even greater need for more efficient and accurate power factor correction, making it 100% necessary to measure the current in the 3 phases of the installation.

For example, to quantify the impact that this penalty could have, consider that in an installation with a 630 kVA transformer, an average excess of just 30 kvarC.h would mean a penalty of €552 over the total of the approximately 368 h a month contained in period 6, and therefore around €6600 a year (only in Spain).

OTHER EXAMPLES
TRANSFORMER	kvarC.h exceeded	Hours in P6	Current monthly/annual surcharge	New monthly/annual surcharge (Spain only)
250 kVA	20 kvar	368 h	0 €/ 0 €	368 € / 4416 €
400 kVA	25 kvar	368 h	0 €/ 0 €	460 € / 5520 €
1000 kVA	50 kvar	368 h	0 €/ 0 €	920 € / 11040 €

CIRCUTOR, a pioneering company and undisputed leader in power factor correction solutions, has designed a new capacitor bank that, by measuring all 3 phases, just like the utility meter, is able to adapt to the different target power factors required in each tariff period, thus guaranteeing not to incur penalties, while maintaining the electrical system at peak efficiency. This solution is intended both for new power factor correction devices and for inclusion in capacitor banks already in operation in electrical installations.

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For more information, you can contact CIRCUTOR via the usual channels, or at the following email address: [email protected]