Engineering
From the bill to the fix
The guides on this site explain power factor, harmonics and drive problems. This page is about working with us: what our engineers look at, what that can and can't tell you, and what happens next.
What we start with
- Your electric bills. Twelve months is ideal. They show whether your utility adjusts for power factor at all, and how much demand and reactive power you carry. Check your utility's rule →
- Measurements you already have. Meter interval data, a past power-quality study, drive fault logs or transformer temperatures.
- The symptoms. Penalties on the bill, fuses or capacitors failing, transformers running hot, drives tripping, equipment you want to add.
What that review can tell you
Often, whether there is a power-factor problem worth correcting at all; many plants pay no power-factor charge. Sometimes, whether the symptoms point to power factor, harmonics or a drive problem. Bills alone can't show harmonics, resonance or short events, so we'll tell you where the information runs out.
What comes next
| What the review shows | Typical next step |
|---|---|
| No charge and no capacity concern | Nothing to buy. We'll say so. |
| A clear power-factor charge, low harmonic load | Discuss correction sizing, location and switching for your load range. When correction is warranted, we design the correction panel and build it in our UL 508A shop. How correction is sized → |
| Drives or electronic loads, or unexplained failures | Measure first. We'll discuss what a survey should cover and how it can be arranged. If the answer is filtering, we design and build harmonic filter panels too. Power quality surveys → |
| Drive trips or interference | Work through the drive-side causes and first checks. Drive problems → |
Who you're working with
FIXKVAR.com is run by Gross Automation, a family-owned company in Brookfield, Wisconsin, with a full-time engineering team and its own UL 508A industrial control panel shop. Our engineers design power-factor correction and harmonic filter panels, and our shop builds them. Power-factor and harmonic-filter panels →