Various problems such as the increase of the power loss and the voltage instability may often occur in the case of low load power factor. The demand of reactive power increases continuously with the growth of active power and the restructuring of electric power companies makes the comprehensive management of reactive power a troublesome problem, so that the systematic control of load power factor is required. In this paper, the load power factor sensitivity of the generation cost is derived and it is used for determining the locations of reactive power compensation devices effectively and for enhancing the load power factor appropriately. In addition, the voltage variation penalty cost is introduced and the integrated costs including the voltage variation penalty cost are used for determining the value of the load power factor from the point of view of the economic investment and voltage regulation. It is shown through the application to a large-scale power system that the load power factor can be enhanced effectively and appropriately using the load power factor sensitivity and integrated costs.