Reactive power compensation with fluorescent lamps

       

By the way, even if you proceed in the most efficient way and compensate the reactive power of magnetic ballasts right in place within the luminaire, one capacitor may suffice for no less than four lamps. In public and commercial areas you often see this type of square luminaires with four lamps rated 18 W each.

They can be operated in tandem mode, two of them in series on one ballast, incurring the cost of only one ballast and also the heat loss of only one ballast. Moreover, one of the two systems can be compensated with a serial capacitor, so as to combine the tandem connection with a lead-lag compensation, which also abandons the stroboscopic effect sometimes cited as a disadvantage of magnetic ballasts.