Electric Power

electric power

[i¦lek·trik ′pau̇·ər]

(electricity)

The rate at which electric energy is converted to other forms of energy, equal to the product of the current and the voltage drop.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Electric Power

 

a physical quantity, a measure of the time rate of transmitting or transforming electric energy.

In DC electric circuits electric power is given as P = EI, where E is the voltage in volts and I is the current in amperes. In AC circuits the product of instantaneous values of voltage e and current i is equal to the instantaneous power: p = ei. The value of p is a variable quantity that represents the power at a given instant. The average value of the instantaneous electric power during the time period T is called the active power

In single-phase circuits with sinusoidal current P = El cos φ, where E and I are the effective values of voltage and current and φ is the phase shift angle between voltage and current. Active electric power characterizes the time rate of the irreversible conversion of electric energy into other kinds of energy (heat, light, and so on). Electric power that characterizes the time rate of energy transmission from the current source to the receiver and back is called reactive power Q = El sin φ. The apparent power is equal to the product of effective values for circuits with periodically changing currents. The relationship between apparent power and active and reactive power is expressed by the equation S² = P² + Q². For circuits with nonsinusoidal currents, electric power is equal to the sum of the corresponding average powers of the individual harmonics

For three-phase circuits electric power is defined as the sum of the powers of individual phases. With symmetrical loading

Where E_l is the line current, I_l, is the line voltage, and φ_φ is the phase dishift angle between voltage and current.

P. V. ERMURATSKII

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.