Comparative analysis of reactive energy regulations

Abstract

The article represents the analysis of tariffs, penalties and costs introduced for reactive electrical energy in different European countries. European electrical power suppliers' websites and scientific articles were overviewed for information about reactive electrical energy regulations and tariffs. Reactive electrical energy penalties are introduced by the network operators in order to encourage the electricity users to reduce reactive energy produced by them impact to the electric energy supply network properties. As the trend in the reactive electrical energy goes from inductive towards capacitive, because of electrical appliance modernization through the increased use of LED light sources and invertors in the energy supply chain from the grid to the device, the need for the world experience analysis occurred. The research shows that several countries in Europe applied penalties on the reactive electrical energy production not only for heavy users (users with big allowed electrical power), but also for households. The reason seems to be increased proportion of reactive energy production from low voltage electricity users, including household and small business units. The measurements and accounting of reactive energy ask for special electric energy meters, which is the additional cost either to the consumers or to the electric network operator. At the same time large part of European countries do not have any regulations regarding reactive electrical energy, just some of them introduced the mentioned regulations for medium-voltage or high-voltage electricity users. With the reactive electric energy component increase there is high probability that the regulations and penalties will be introduced on a much wider scale, and will include low-voltage powered households as well, especially with the reduced electricity consumption per capita, and increasing operation costs incurred in the budget of network operators.

Analysis of electronic loads on electrical measurements, power quality and billing

“…There are some rules and ways to penalty a consumer unit, due to the surplus reactive power. In [43,138], the authors show some of them. In this chapter, the authors chose two ways, aiming to discuss the influence of nonlinear loads on electrical energy billing.…”

“…In this chapter, it will be shown the limits set to the power factor or equivalent parameter used to some electrical energy billing purposes. Table 44 summarizes some of these parameters, to some countries [33,43,138]. The sum of the spent reactive electricity was broken down into spent (inductive reactive) and generated (capacitive reactive) electricity on equal parts.…”

“…According to [138], some countries do not have any regulations and penalties for reactive energy production and supply to the electric network, such as Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Greece. Moreover, some countries apply the penalties of reactive energy only to consumers fed in medium and high voltages grids, with no regulations for low voltage (household) consumers, such as Belgium and Croatia.…”

“…-There was an additional change of the power factor character -from resistive/inductive to resistive/capacitive Reactive power and rate structures [138,154] -The authors discuss the reactive power issues, as well as some rate structures from some Europe countries.…”

“…It means that it is not an easy task to understand how countries charge their consumers. Related to the power factor, some countries do not have any regulations and penalties for reactive energy production and supply to the electric network, such as Denmark, Czech Republic, and Greece [138]. Furthermore, some countries have no regulations for household consumers, such as Belgium and Croatia.…”