What is Wrong with the Budeanu Concept of Reactive and Distortion Power and Why It Should be Abandoned

The Budeanu definitions of reactive and distortion power in circuits with nonsinusoidal waveforms have been spread in electrical engineering, despite some objections, for almost 60 years. The objections have concerned mainly with the question of whether these powers should be defined in the frequency domain and whether they can be measured as defined. Unfortunately, the main drawbacks of these definitions have not been noticed. Namely, the Budeanu reactive and distortion powers do not possess any attributes which might be related to the power phenomena in the circuit. Moreover, their values do not provide any information which could enable the design of compensating circuits. Also, the distortion power value does not provide any information about waveform distortion. Therefore, Budeanu\u27s concept has led the power theory of circuits with nonsinusoidal waveforms into a blind alley. Copyright © 1987 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc