These installations require carefully designed power factor capacitors or in some cases harmonic filters to avoid amplifying harmonics which may damage components of your electrical system. The presence of harmonics in your electrical system points to a power quality problem.
Calculating your surcharge
You are billed for the usable power and a surcharge is applied to cover the cost of supplying the reactive power whenever the power factor drops below 90%. Capacitors are used to increase power factor to above 90%.
To measure the amount of reactive power used, your business is equipped with a kVARh (kilovar-hour) meter. This meter enables the power factor of your electrical system to be calculated.
| Power Factor | Surcharge |
| Less than 100% but 90% or more | Nil |
| Less than 90% but 88% or more | 2% |
| Less than 88% but 85% or more | 4% |
| Less than 85% but 80% or more | 9% |
| Less than 80% but 75% or more | 16% |
| Less than 75% but 70% or more | 24% |
| Less than 70% but 65% or more | 34% |
| Less than 65% but 60% or more | 44% |
| Less than 60% but 55% or more | 57% |
| Less than 55% but 50% or more 72% | 72% |
| Less than 50% | 80% |
Example:
If your total charges are $1,398.05 per month ($1,393.90 usage charge + $4.15 basic charge), and your power factor is 77%, then your surcharge, from the above table, is 16% of the total charges or $223.68.
These details are shown on your BC Hydro bill.
