Electricity plays a pivotal role in most businesses and a protracted power outage usually shows just how critical reliable electricity is to enterprise survival. In South Africa, businesses are struggling to remain competitive, as inefficiencies in the national power grid are exacerbated by rising energy costs, necessitating the need to explore ways of lowering operating costs without reducing production capacity.

Electra Mining Africa exhibitor Alpha Power Solutions MD Eric Solot says many businesses struggle to reduce their electricity costs effectively. In most industrial and commercial electrical networks, excessive costs are incurred by what is invoiced as ‘energy demand’, also referred to as ‘maximum demand’ or ‘kilovolt ampere (kVA)’ and ‘reactive energy consumption’, or ‘kVA reactive hours’.

The solution, he says, is to conduct an audit and diagnosis of the electrical load profile of a site and to then install the necessary power factor correction hardware to optimise the electrical energy demand and reactive power con-sumption of the installation.

“Implementing what is known as power factor cor- rection, power-quality engi-neers strategically reduce the total power demand of an electrical installation from the power utility by reducing its reactive energy demand and consumption from the grid,” Solot says.

The investment payback period for power factor correction equipment is seldom longer than 12 months and the equipment has a life expectancy of at least ten years, he adds.

Power factor correction equipment is suited for any electrical installation making use of inductive electrical loads, such as motors, transformers and welding machines, among others.

Solot says the popularity of variable speed drivers, soft-starters and other nonlinear loads in recent years has resulted in undesirable side effects, such as elevated harmonic levels in electrical systems, which can be exacerbated by the introduction of power factor correction equipment. To mitigate these negative effects, Alpha Power Solutions supplies power factor correction equipment, which has been fitted with harmonic blocking reactors. Examples of this type of equipment will be presented at the Electra Mining Africa show.

“The power factor correction equipment supplied by Alpha Power Solutions is manu-factured and fully tested in Belgium, but significant amounts of research and development have been invested into the product range on offer over the years, to accommodate the rigours of the South African electrical distribution network as well as the elevated ambient temperatures experienced in this part of the world,” Solot says.

With over 30 years’ experience in this specialised field of electrical efficiency, Alpha Power Solutions has made significant inroads in the sub-Saharan Africa market and has offered turnkey power factor correction solutions not only in South Africa, but also in Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Swaziland, Botswana and Namibia.

Hall 7 Stand G17