What Is Power Factor?

Power factor of an Alternating Current electric power system is the ratio of the power to the load to the apparent power. In the numerator, the real power comes while in the denominator the apparent power comes. The value of the power factor ranges between 0 and 1. Real power is calculated as the capacity of the circuit for doing work in a particular time while apparent power is the product of the current and voltage. The value of power factor is between 0 and 1 is because when energy is stored in the load and returned to the surface because of the non-linear load then apparent power is usually higher than real power.