Pic Microcontroller Based Power Factor Correction for both Leading and Lagging Loads using Compensation Method

The electricity has become vital source of energy to almost every kind of load existing in nature, hence a need arises to provide energy to load at its full potential without the wastage of power. In order to achieve such, we need to improve power factor which occurs due to phase shift between voltage and current. This article includes a new implementation method to improve power factor for both leading and lagging loads using PIC Microcontroller after determining their zero crossing locations of voltage and current waveforms by zero cross detectors (ZCD). Capacitive and inductive banks are used for the compensation of power factor according to nature of load which is determined based on microcontroller algorithm. After power factor compensation the proposed method improved apparent power approximately from 18 to 40 percent.