I am curious as to what VARS actually are, and mean to the power system. As detailed an explanation as possible would be quite helpful. I have a year of AC/DC theory, but am still having a little trouble on grasping what they mean in our power system.

 

Silk,

This is one of "those" questions that has been asked and answered many times before on control.com. In the far right corner of the menu bar at the top of each control.com page there is a 'Search' field and a 'Search Help' button. The Search function here is very good and very fast, but it requires some learning (very little, but extremely crucial). If you'll use the Search function of control.com to search for VARs you will likely find some useful information, though you'll likely have to wade through many posts to do so. But, that's all part and parcel of the learning process.

Here's one thread you might want to start with:

http://www.control.com/thread/1026238188

OR, if you want to send your affiliation (university or work) and your name and email address to cepsicon (at) aol (dot) com, you can receive his famous white paper about reactive ... reactance and counter-emf and armature reaction which also discusses VArs.

Actually, it doesn't have to be an OR situation, you could do both and benefit from multiple perspectives.

Once you have read through some of the previous posts on VArs and read through the armature reaction white paper, then you can ask any other questions you might have.

By the way, once you've read the armature reaction white paper, we'd be very interested to know your reaction.

But one thing I can tell you about VArs: They are <b>NOT</b> like foam on beer or cola. Many people try to say they are just there and don't "do anything" like foam on beer or cola, but if there's no foam on the beer or cola it's very likely that the beer or cola is flat (which isn't good) and if there's too much foam on the beer or cola then the beer or cola can also be flat AND decrease the amount of beer or cola to be consumed. So, contrary to popular belief, VArs are not like foam on beer or cola.

One more caution about discussing VArs here on control.com: Don't refer to "reactive power", or refer to VArs as flowing unless you make it very clear you are just using the flow reference as part of an analogy. No matter what or how the rest of the world refers to VArs and describes VArs, you must be very literal and very careful here on control.com.

Have you tried looking at www.wikipedia.org to look at their explanation of VArs?

There's also another good World Wide Web source for this stuff:

candu.canteach.org

And, I continue to be amazed at the information one can find these days on youtube.com. There are even university lectures on many subjects there!

So, look around, and if you have more questions or need clarification write back!