Commercial load-factor calculator
Compare average electricity use with the highest measured demand. Load factor can reveal whether a facility uses power steadily or creates short peaks relative to its monthly energy.
Load factor calculator
Load factor compares average energy use with the maximum demand your business placed on the grid.
More peaky
A small number of high intervals may be setting the billed peak.
Compare several months for the same facility; there is no universal ideal load factor.
Load-factor formula
Load factor equals monthly kWh divided by peak kW multiplied by the hours in the billing period. The result is expressed as a percentage. A facility that maintained its billed peak every hour would have a 100% load factor, while a site with brief high peaks and long low-load periods would be much lower.
Worked example from a monthly bill
A facility using 36,000 kWh over 30 days with a 100 kW billed peak has a 50% load factor: 36,000 ÷ (100 × 720 hours). Its average demand is 50 kW, half of the measured peak. That result describes the shape of the month; it does not by itself prove that the facility is efficient or inefficient.
How to interpret the result
There is no universal ideal percentage or industry-wide pass mark. Cold storage and continuous manufacturing often run more steadily than restaurants, offices, or vehicle-charging sites. Compare the result with the same facility across several months before deciding that it is unusually low or high.
Why load factor matters
A low load factor can indicate that a small number of high-demand intervals are large compared with average consumption. If the tariff includes demand charges, reducing those intervals may lower the effective cost per kWh without a proportional reduction in total energy.
Next calculation
Use the demand-charge calculator to estimate the value of a realistic peak reduction.