A comment from the “how cold is your house“ thread, but I’m replying here as the clarification I’m asking about has more to do with electricity consumption.
gentlegreen , when you mentioned power factor above, did you mean you would be charged for more than the 4.7kWh you’ve measured, or that you’ve used 4.7kWh of chargeable heat energy but expect you’ve had more heat than that due to a below unity power factor?
I’ve toyed with power factor correction, adding a 0.68uF capacitor to my central heating circulation pump, but I only did so because it lowered the current drawn (by 5.5%) when I ran it from battery via inverter, not because I expected it to change the billed rate from my electricity supplier. When I’ve looked into it in the past, every indication has been that for domestic customers, power factor is not relevant to the billed rates as domestic electricty meters charge in kWh rather than kVA. Would be interesting if you have any info on this, as measuring power factor and correcting it with capacitors is not all that difficult once you’re set up for it. I just haven’t had a reason to go very far down that road.