Which term describes power wasted in the form of heat in circuits?

• A. Capacitance
• B. Frequency
• C. Reactive power
• D. Inductance/Inductor

Answer: (C)

In AC circuits, power is split into real (active) power, which actually does work and is dissipated as heat in resistive paths, and reactive power, which simply stores energy in magnetic or electric fields and returns it each cycle. The energy that turns into heat is real (active) power. Reactive power, by contrast, does not consume energy over a cycle in ideal components. Capacitance and inductance describe energy storage, and frequency describes how often the cycle repeats, but none of these are the term for heat-dissipated power. So the heat-loss term you’re looking for is real (active) power.