Аннотация:The main contribution of this paper is identifying the key role played by cyclo-dissipativity in the solution of the power factor compensation problem for electrical circuits. Namely, we prove that a necessary condition for a (shunt) compensator to improve the power transfer is that the overall system satisfies a given cyclo-dissipativity property, which naturally leads to a formulation of the compensation problem as one of cyclo-dissipasivation. Cyclo-dissipative systems exhibit a net absorption of (abstract) energy only along closed paths, while a dissipative system cannot create energy for all trajectories, henceforth, this concept generalizes the one of passivation.