Patent ID: 8076910

Claim:
An automatic power factor correction analysis method, comprising: automatically determining a hierarchy of an electrical system, the hierarchy indicating how a number of intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) are linked to one another in the electrical system, each of the IEDs monitoring electrical characteristics; automatically storing a data representation of the hierarchy; automatically identifying from the automatically determined hierarchy a main IED that is monitoring a main power supply in the hierarchy; receiving maximum power data from corresponding current and voltage signals monitored by the main IED and an associated power factor that is coincident with the maximum power data; determining a reactive power value coincident with the maximum power data by receiving the reactive power value from the main IED or by deriving the reactive power value from the maximum power data or from data representing the current and voltage signals and the power factor coincident with the maximum power data; and calculating, based on the coincident power factor, an amount of positive or negative reactive power to supply to improve the coincident power factor toward a unity value, and, responsive thereto, storing a recommendation indicating at least a location and a size of one or more capacitors to be added in the automatically determined hierarchy for producing at least the amount of the reactive power such that the reactive power value is offset by the amount of the reactive power.