Poor power factor costs money every month. Utilities bill for it directly through power factor penalties or demand charges, and low power factor also means higher current for the same real load — which means more losses in your conductors and transformers and less headroom in equipment you have already paid for.
Power factor correction identifies the optimal location and size of correction capacitors so you fix the problem where it originates rather than masking it at the service entrance.
What the analysis covers
- Review of utility billing to quantify what poor power factor is actually costing you
- Load analysis to find where the reactive demand originates
- Capacitor sizing and placement — at the service, at the MCC, or at individual motors
- Harmonic assessment, because capacitors and harmonics interact badly
- Resonance check to avoid creating a worse problem than the one being solved
- Payback calculation against actual tariff structure
Adding capacitance to a system with significant harmonic content can create a resonant condition that amplifies harmonic currents, overheats the capacitors, and damages equipment. Any correction scheme worth installing includes a harmonic analysis first. This is a common failure mode when capacitors are sized from a bill instead of from a model.
Where it pays best
Facilities with large motor loads running at partial load see the strongest returns — food processing, packing houses, pumping stations, cold storage, and agricultural operations across the Central Valley. Irrigation pumping in particular tends to run motors well below nameplate, which is exactly the condition that produces poor power factor.
Talk to the engineer who does the work
No sales team. You speak directly with a California licensed Professional Engineer about your equipment, your schedule, and what the study will actually cost.