# Interest group forums > Electrical Contracting Industry Forum > Electrical Load Shedding Forum >  Power Factor Correction

## rohor

How much can power factor correction (on inductive loads) help in reducing maximum demand. Heard this a long time ago, but have forgotten the theory.

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## duncan drennan

Power factor influences transmission losses. The end user still uses the same amount of energy, regardless of their power factor, but the utility loses energy in the transmission.

I have no idea what the figures are, but I'm sure that improving power factor would generally put less strain on the equipment (i.e. less maintenance and more uptime).

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## OldGoat

> How much can power factor correction (on inductive loads) help in reducing maximum demand. Heard this a long time ago, but have forgotten the theory.


A very good power factor is 98% which means that if a motor is rated 100kW then it would require about 102 kVA to work.
A bad power factor of say 70% would mean the same 100 kW motor would require around 142 kVA of demand.

The incentive for industry to correct power factor is already in place where commercial and industrial electricity tariffs are billed for the kVA part (maximum demand) *and* the kWh (energy).

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