AC Power

We can specify voltages, currents and powers as time curves or as complex quantities. The mathematics does not differ, no matter which quantity we describe. Nevertheless, it makes sense to look at power with alternating current separately, because it is interpreted somewhat differently from voltage and current.

In the previous chapters, it was mentioned rather in passing that energy stores can only store energy and ohmic resistors always convert energy into another form (e.g. heat). In this chapter, we look into this fact mathematically.

For this, we distinguish two types of power: active power converts energy into another form. Reactive power moves energy back and forth between two stores. Let us first look intuitively at how these forms of power differ.