The ratio of real to apparent power at the service. Where the tariff bills it, a low power factor adds a reactive-power penalty to the invoice; correcting it — or confirming the rate carries no clause — is a clean, quantifiable saving. Availability depends on the meter and the tariff.
The ratio of real power (the work the site actually does, in kW) to apparent power (the total the utility must deliver, in kVA) at the electrical service — a number between 0 and 1. A low power factor means the site is drawing reactive current that does no useful work but still loads the utility's wires; where the tariff bills it, that reactive draw becomes a surcharge on the invoice.
Power factor is read directly from a power-quality meter at the main service — it is one of the signals the submetering layer streams, not a value derived after the fact. Keedian sees it; it does not set it. Two figures matter for billing: the demand-coincident power factor at the moment of the monthly peak, and the monthly-average power factor — which one applies depends entirely on how the rate is written.
The saving is never estimated from telemetry alone. It is quantified directly from the utility bill: read the rate's power-factor clause, find the penalty actually charged, and size the correction against that number. The telemetry tells you the PF is low; the bill tells you whether — and how much — it costs.
Where the rate carries no power-factor clause, the metric is an informational watch only. Correction is not recommended in that case, because a capacitor bank that earns nothing on the invoice is a cost with no return. Confirming the absence of a clause is itself a deliverable — it closes the question without a false savings claim.
As with every Energy signal in V1, there is no weather or occupancy normalization. The exact rate structure, penalty threshold, and meter configuration vary by client and utility, so the calculation is confirmed per site against that client's actual tariff.
| Range | Classification | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| ≥ 0.95 | Healthy | Above almost every tariff penalty threshold. No action; reactive load is well managed. |
| 0.90 – 0.95 | Watch | Comfortable on most rates, but close enough to a typical ~0.90 threshold to trend; a small load shift could tip it into penalty. |
| 0.85 – 0.90 | Penalty likely (where billed) | Below the common ~0.90 penalty floor. If the tariff carries a clause, the surcharge is on the invoice now — quantify it from the bill. |
| < 0.85 | Penalty + investigate | Material surcharge where billed, and low enough to suspect a failed capacitor or a lightly-loaded / failing motor behind it — inspect, do not just correct. |
Reference values only — the ~0.90 figure is the common penalty floor, not a Keedian standard. The threshold that matters is the one written into the client's actual tariff. Calibrate per client against the rate and the bill before acting.
There is no fixed portfolio target for power factor — the bar is the threshold in each site's tariff. Where a rate carries a clause, the operating goal is to keep PF above that rate's penalty floor; where it carries none, the metric is watched but not corrected. Define the per-site bar with the client against their rate.
The table below shows how moving Power factor impacts each customer value driver the product is designed to improve — the metric page explains the mechanism; the product pages express the magnitude.
| Value driver | Impact strength | How Power factor moves this lever |
|---|---|---|
| Energy savings | Direct, where billed | On a tariff with a power-factor clause, a low PF is a reactive-power surcharge sitting on the invoice every month. Correcting it — sizing and installing PF-correction capacitors to the reactive load — removes that line. The saving is clean and quantifiable because it is read straight off the bill, not modeled. Anchor any figure to the client's own invoice; broader energy-spend outcomes track to the 7-Eleven program ($5M energy savings) — power factor is one contributing lever, not the whole number, and a site-level estimate is expected (pending validation) until the bill confirms it. |
| Avoided truck rolls | Indirect, diagnostic | Power factor trending down at a stable load is rarely just a billing event — it often points to a failed correction capacitor or a lightly-loaded or failing motor. Catching that drift remotely, from the meter, turns it into one scoped electrician visit with the cause already identified, instead of a blind dispatch or a surprise the next time the equipment is touched. |
| Asset lifespan | Indirect | A persistently low or falling PF can be the electrical fingerprint of a motor degrading or a capacitor that has already failed. Surfacing it early lets the underlying equipment be inspected and serviced before it fails outright, which protects the asset — a secondary benefit alongside the billing correction, not the primary reason to act. |
The table below summarizes the alarms that fire directly from Power factor. Each row links to the full operational detail (trigger, preconditions, action plan, human role, escalation, prevention) in the SOPs catalog.
| Alarm | Description | Severity | Tier | AI executes? | Value drivers | SOP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low power factor | Power factor falls below the tariff penalty threshold where the utility bills it — a reactive-power surcharge on the invoice. | Medium | Optimized | Hybrid | Energy savings | Open SOP → |
More alarms in development (single-metric): reactive-power (kVAR) trend at stable load as an early failed-capacitor signal. Composite power-quality alarms combining power factor with service voltage and per-circuit current will appear in a future release.
The action plan for each alarm lives on its own SOP page in the SOPs catalog — with the diagnostic steps, human role, value drivers, escalation, and prevention specific to that alarm. The list below maps each alarm to its SOP.
Before any correction is recommended, confirm the tariff actually bills power factor. If the rate carries no PF clause, the metric is an informational watch only — close it as such and suppress correction recommendations. A capacitor bank that earns nothing on the invoice is a cost with no return, and recommending one would be a false savings claim. Document that the rate was checked and carries no clause so the question stays closed.
The saving is read off the invoice, never estimated from the meter alone. Pull the rate's PF clause, find the surcharge actually charged, and confirm it is material and persistent across billing periods. Only then scope PF-correction capacitors sized to the reactive load, verified against payback. Present the figure as the client's own bill number, not a modeled estimate. The capacitor install is executed by a licensed electrician — Keedian scopes and verifies it; it does not perform the electrical work, and it cannot correct PF through the meter.
If the metered power factor disagrees with what the utility invoice shows, or reads outside a physically sensible range, treat the reading as suspect before acting on any alarm. Power factor is meaningful only with healthy power-quality metering at the service; a misconfigured or faulty meter biases every PF flag. Escalate internally to the technical team and do not present a site as carrying a recoverable surcharge until the reading reconciles to the bill.
Per-alarm escalation criteria live in the Escalation block of each SOP in the SOPs catalog. The patterns below are metric-level — read from the portfolio view, not from any single alarm firing.