The Reactive Power charge is one of the ways by which consumers with a poor power factor pay more for their electricity than consumers with a good power factor. From April 2010, a common charging method will be in force across all UK Electricity Supply Companies.

This will apply to ALL half-hourly metered consumers. If your electricity bill does not yet include a charge for reactive power, this will be introduced over the coming months.

The way the reactive power charge is calculated is; the consumer will be ‘allowed’ to use reactive power up to a third of the active power consumed for free

i.e. ‘allowed’ reactive power = 0.33 x total kWh

Any reactive power which is used over this ‘allowed’ figure is considered to be ‘excess’ usage and is chargeable.

By installing power factor correction equipment and ensuring that the average power factor is better than 0.95 lagging, no ‘excess’ reactive power is consumed.

This means that ALL excess reactive power charges are avoided.

Contact our team of sales engineers to discuss your existing or imminent Reactive Power charge, and how to avoid them.

Telephone - 0844 77 00 262 or 0121 708 4511

Email - sales@powercapacitors.co.uk