A recent white paper on Power Factor Correction (PFC) makes a striking observation: the volume of untapped, quoted, and technically proven PFC work may be comparable to the volume that actually gets installed.
In effect, the market that stalls could be as large as the market that proceeds.
As with any white paper, the figures should be treated with appropriate caution. Market estimates are never exact, and assumptions around audits, surveys, and conversion rates can reasonably be challenged.
The point is not whether the number is precisely right.
It is whether it is directionally useful.
Industry experience suggests it is.
Across installers and end users alike, there is a familiar pattern: projects that are surveyed, costed, technically validated, and supported by clear savings, remain parked at CAPEX sign-off.
Is that 50% of proven work? Possibly. Is it lower - 20% or even 15%? It might be?
But even at those more conservative levels, the conclusion barely changes.
A double-digit proportion of already proven, already justified PFC projects are not failing on technical merit. They are failing because of capital prioritisation. They lose out to other demands, arrive at the wrong moment in the budget cycle, or simply sit in the “approved in principle” category indefinitely.
That reality has defined the Power Factor Correction market for years.
What has changed now is the commercial landscape.
New delivery models now exist that redirect a portion of the actual, realised savings from Power Factor Correction installations to fund the project itself, removing the need for upfront CAPEX entirely.
Under these models, savings are no longer something to argue for at approval; they become the mechanism that enables delivery.
This shift is already being explored by leading specialists in the sector, including organisations such as Power Factor Wizard, who are structuring projects specifically around this savings-led approach rather than traditional capital purchase.
This reframes the opportunity.
For installers, it suggests the next wave of work may not come from new surveys alone, but from revisiting what already exists, old proposals, shelved tenders, and projects that stalled for reasons unrelated to value.
For clients, it creates an opportunity to reassess projects that were previously sound but commercially inconvenient at the time.
In that sense, the white paper may be less a forecast of future demand than a map of unfinished business.
Defrosting stale quotes. Reopening “cold cases.” Looking again at projects that were right, but early.
If the data is even partially correct, a significant part of the PFC opportunity is already documented. The difference now is that the constraint that kept it frozen has materially changed.