Problems of power quality usually were caused by low electrical voltage factor. It will be able to cause deficiency to PLN (Indonesian State Electricity Company) customer’s electricity. Poor power quality supply is caused by the voltage drop, and the poor quality power supply may impair the plugged-in electronic devices due to lossing hot in conductor and devices.
Improving power factor can solve the problem. Power factor is differences in the angle of phase between active power (Watts) and pseudo power (va). Power factor has a value between 0 and 1. If the value close to 1, then quality of power is better.
Therefore, Electrical Engineering of Diponegoro University (Undip)’s students, i.e. Novita Siti Lestari and Alif Nabiel Luqman guided by Dr. Iwan Setiawan S.T., M.T. on program of students’ creativity (PKM – Karsa Cipta) create SMART COPY, a tool for improving quality of power.
“This tool can improve quality of power by using variable bank capacitor. If the load (electronic devices) in the home is change, then SMART COPY will automatically adjust on,” Novita said.
“SMART COPY is made based on general problem of power, i.e. the power factor is low. In the testing, this tool is able to improve the power factor from 0,65 t 0,97. So this tool is able to improve the quality of power and to increase the household customer’s electrical efficiency,” Novita said.
According to Novita, this tool is also equipped with sophisticated technology-based iot (Internet of Things), i.e. the tool integrated with smartphone through the Internet.
“This tool is able to monitor the quality of power and electrical consumption through smartphone. So this tool can also be used to minimize electrical consumption,” Novita said.
Novita’s team hope this technology can help people and government to make an effort for saving electrical consumption. In addition, they also hope the household customers’ power can realize the poor quality of power will accelerate the damage to plugged-in electronic devices in the home.
(089670983935/ Novita)