Enter apparent power (kVA) and power factor to calculate real power (kW).
How to Use the kVA to kW Calculator
Two fields: apparent power in kVA, and power factor as a decimal between 0 and 1. No voltage, no current, no phase count — multiply the two and you're done.
kW = kVA × PF5 kVA at a power factor of 0.8 is 4 kW. That's the entire calculation, which makes this a good place to actually explain what power factor is, since the busier calculators in this group don't have the room.
Power factor is literally the ratio of real power to apparent power — kW divided by kVA, nothing more abstract than that. A power factor of 1.0 describes a purely resistive load: a space heater, an incandescent bulb, anything where voltage and current rise and fall in perfect lockstep. Every watt the circuit carries goes straight into heat or light, with nothing left over. Drop to 0.8, typical for motors, fluorescent ballasts, and most industrial equipment, and 20% of the apparent power is reactive — current that has to flow to support the load's magnetic field but converts into no useful output at all.
Power factor can't exceed 1.0. It's a ratio of real power to apparent power, and apparent power is by definition the larger (or, at best, equal) of the two quantities — you can't extract more real work from a circuit than the total power flowing through it. A PF reading above 1 on a meter means something's been measured or wired wrong, not that a circuit found a way to beat the ceiling.
A PF near 0 means almost none of the apparent power is doing anything useful — which is exactly the situation utilities charge extra to correct, since they still have to generate and deliver the full apparent power even though they're only billing for the real portion.