Equipment and appliances requiring reactive energy

All AC equipement and appliances that include electromagnetic devices, or depend on magnetically-coupled windings, require some degree of reactive current to create magnetic flux.

The most common items in this class are transformers and reactors, motors and discharge lamps (with magnetic ballasts) (see Fig. L2).

The proportion of reactive power (kvar) with respect to active power (kW) when an item of equipement is fully loaded varies according to the item concerned being:

• 65-75% for asynchronous motors
• 5-10% for transformers

Fig. L2: Power consuming items that also require reactive energy