What's the difference between active and reactive power?

sorry i am not electric engineer 

i am agree with specialities...................

Active power is the active (resistive) component of power whereas reactive power is the reactive (inductive or capacitive) component of power. Representing by phasors VI cos (theta) is active power and VI sin (theta) is reactive power where VI is power (voltage x current)

The product of voltage and current is positive or zero, with the result that the direction of energy flow does not reverse. In this case, only active power is transferred.

If the loads are purely reactive, then the voltage and current are 90 degrees out of phase. For half of each cycle, the product of voltage and current is positive, but on the other half of the cycle, the product is negative, indicating that on average, exactly as much energy flows toward the load as flows back. There is no net energy flow over one cycle. In this case, only reactive power flows—there is no net transfer of energy to the load.

Active power is expressed in watts,kw and reactive power is expressed in Volt Ampere Reactive.The actual amount of power used or dissipated  in a circuit is Active power.

The portion of power that, averaged over a complete cycle of the AC waveform, results in net transfer of energy in one direction is known as active power (sometimes also called real power).

The portion of power due to stored energy, which returns to the source in each cycle, is known as reactive power.