[Taf]

Whenever this subject comes up, I have to tell people this insidious fact:

We are charged for electricity by the kilowatt-hour (kwh).

But a thing called Power Factor (PF) means that some devices cause a phase shift along the power lines, so the power companies have to add extra power to compensate.

That costs the power companies money.

So they all want to charge us another way, kilovolt-amperes (kVa) which gives the true value of power we use.

Smart meters can read kVa, so at some time in the future our bills will suddenly rise when they switch to that measurement method.

Just as electric heating, electric car charging, et al, become the norm.....