kVAh Billing

kVAh billing charges you on apparent energy (kilovolt-ampere-hours) instead of real energy (kilowatt-hours, kWh). Apparent energy includes both the useful power you consume and the reactive power your inductive loads draw. Because kVAh = kWh ÷ power factor, a lower power factor means a higher kVAh bill for the same real work done. Many Indian states have moved commercial and industrial tariffs to kVAh billing precisely to make every consumer pay for poor power factor.

Improve your power factor. Since kVAh = kWh ÷ PF, raising PF from say 0.85 toward 0.98 shrinks the kVAh you're billed for by around 13% — with no change to your actual consumption. The first step is monitoring: a Class 0.5S meter like Titan shows your kVAh, kWh and PF together and the rupee gap between them, tells you when your capacitor bank has failed, and quantifies exactly how much correction would recover. Titan monitors and alerts; the correction itself is done by your APFC/capacitors.

kWh (real energy) is the useful energy that does work — it turns motors, produces heat, runs lighting. kVAh (apparent energy) is the total energy the supply has to deliver, including the reactive component that inductive loads pull but don't convert to work. The ratio between them is your power factor. On a kWh tariff you only pay for real energy; on a kVAh tariff you pay for apparent energy, so poor power factor directly raises the bill.

Almost always because your power factor is below 1.0 and kVAh billing now charges you for that, unit by unit, instead of as a single penalty. If consumption didn't change but the bill jumped, monitor your power factor: a low or dropping PF (often from a failed capacitor stage) is usually the culprit, and it's now visible on every kVAh you're billed.