Intelecommunications,electronics and theelectrical power industry, the termdemand factor is used to refer to the fractional amount of some quantity being used relative to the maximum amount that could be used by the same system. The demand factor is always less than or equal to one. As the amount of demand is a time dependent quantity so is the demand factor.
The demand factor is often implicitly averaged over time when the time period of demand is understood by the context.
Inelectrical engineering the demand factor is taken as a time independent quantity where the numerator is taken as the maximum demand in the specified time period instead of the averaged or instantaneous demand.
This is the peak in theload profile divided by the full load of the device.
Example:If a residence has equipment which could draw 6,000 W when all equipment was drawing a full load, drew a maximum of 3,000 W in a specified time, then the demand factor = 3,000 W / 6,000 W = 0.5
This quantity is relevant when trying to establish the amount of load for which a system should be rated. In the above example, it would be unlikely that the system would be rated to 6,000 W, even though there may be a slight possibility that this amount of power can be drawn. This is closely related to theload factor which is the average load divided by the peak load in a specified time period.
This article incorporatespublic domain material fromFederal Standard 1037C.General Services Administration. Archived fromthe original on 2022-01-22. (in support ofMIL-STD-188).
