AC Power Control Methods

A wide variety of methods has been developed to control the AC power

in a load. Some have found widespread use, while others are particularly
specialized in their application.

Switched Control
Rheostat Control
Voltage Control
Thyristor Power Control

Load power may be controlled by a switching method, where the load is

turned on and off; or by linear methods, where the load power is controlled by
providing continuous or infinite control of load voltage.

Switched Control

In principle the switching method is the simplest method of controlling

power. As shown in Figure 1, control consists of a switch either to connect or to
disconnect the load from the supply. Control is limited to a simple on/off action.
The AC power dissipated by the load is determined by the load current and
voltage.

Figure 1 Switched load control

 This form of control is limited to situations where on/off control is all that
is required, for example, controlling the temperature of stored water where the
switch is actually a thermostat and cycles the load according to changes in
temperature.

A variation of switched control is simmerstat control. A simmerstat is a

switch that is cycled on and off by a small heating element inside it. The actual
switch contact is mounted on a bimetal strip that bends as its temperature
changes, opening and closing the switch.

The average AC power dissipated by the load is controlled by the relative

on/off times of the simmerstat. The switching action is independent of the
power actually being dissipated in the load. This may be a disadvantage in
some situations.

The simmerstat is widely used for the control of heating elements such
as the hotplates on electric ranges and electric blankets.

The advantages of this method are that it is simple and relatively inexpensive.
The disadvantages are that it provides coarse control, is relatively unreliable
and inaccurate, and suffers from contact wear and/or fatigue.

What is a Rheostat

A rheostat is a variable resistor which is used to control current. They are

able to vary the resistance in a circuit without interruption. The construction is
very similar to the construction of a potentiometers. It uses only two
connections, even when 3 terminals (as in a potentiometer) are present.
Rheostat

This is the simplest way of using a variable resistor. Two terminals are used:
one connected to an end of the track, the other to the moveable wiper. Turning
the spindle changes the resistance between the two terminals from zero up to
the maximum resistance.

Rheostats are often used to vary current, for example to control the brightness
of a lamp or the rate of charging a capacitor.

Potentiometer

Variable resistors used as potentiometers have all three terminals connected.

This arrangement is normally used to vary voltage, for example to set the
switching point of a circuit with a sensor, or control the volume (loudness) in
an amplifier circuit. If the terminals at the ends of the track are connected
across the power supply then the wiper terminal will provide a voltage which
can be varied from zero up to the maximum of the supply.
Types of Rheostats:
1. Linear Rheostat:

These rheostats have a linear resistive path. The sliding terminal glides
over this path. There are two fixed terminals however only one of the two is
used. The other terminal is connected to the slider.

These are mostly used in laboratory applications. Mostly wire-wound resistive

path along a linear cylinder shaped material, is used.

2. Rotary Rheostat:

With full justice to its name, a rotary rheostat has a rotary resistive path.
These are mostly used in power applications. These rheostats have a shaft on
which the wiper is mounted. Wiper is nothing but the sliding contact for a rotary
rheostat, which can rotate over ¾ of a circle.

The function and working principle are all same for both types of rheostats.

3. Preset Rheostat:

When rheostats are used in a printed circuit board, they are used as
trimmers or preset rheostats. Trimmers are nothing but a small rheostat, mostly
used in calibration circuits. Two terminal trimmers are available, although in
most cases three terminal potentiometer trimmer is used as a two terminal
rheostat.

Rheostat Control
Rheostat control uses a series-connected rheostat (variable resistance),
as depicted in Figure 2, to control load power. As resistance is introduced in
series with the load, the load voltage, and hence AC power, is reduced. The
reduction in load voltage is caused by the voltage drop across the rheostat.
 AC Power may be controlled from a very low value, up to full power.
However, for a wide range of control the rheostat may be physically very large;
it may in fact be larger than the load. To control the load, power must be
dissipated in the rheostat. This is a power loss and results in poor efficiency at
low load settings. When the load power is reduced to 50 per cent, the power
dissipated in the rheostat is equal to the load power.

Figure 2 Rheostat load control

For example, assume that the load in Figure 2 has a resistance of 10 Ω

and the supply voltage is 100 V. If the rheostat is set to 5 Ω, determine the load
power, input power and efficiency.

If the rheostat in Figure 2 were set to 10 Ω, the load power would be

further reduced to 250 W. The efficiency would also decrease: in this example,
to 50 per cent. As the load power is reduced even further, the efficiency also
decreases.

This form of control is widely used in equipment of older design. Owing

to its low efficiency and generally poor performance, it has now been largely
superseded by more modern methods.
 Apart from poor efficiency, an undesirable aspect of this method is the
manner in which the load voltage varies if the load current varies. This is termed
‘poor load regulation’ and may be overcome by using automatic voltage
regulators, but this becomes very expensive when the load power is high and
still does not overcome the poor efficiency of the method.

This method of AC power control has the advantage that it is very simple.
The disadvantages are that it is very inefficient, bulky, very expensive (when
the running costs are taken into consideration), and has poor load regulation.

Voltage Control

This method controls the load power in the same manner as rheostat
control that is, by varying the load voltage, but uses either a Variac or a tapped
inductor. These methods are suited only to AC supplies and loads. The use of
the Variac or the tapped inductor overcomes the poor efficiency of the rheostat
method.

Variacs and inductors are very efficient devices compared with rheostats.
A Variac is a form of transformer. It is a variable autotransformer. These devices
are efficient but they have the disadvantage that they are bulky, heavy and
expensive, particularly where the load power is high.

AC Power may be controlled from zero to rated power. Figure 3 shows a

Variac connected to control load power.
Figure 3 Variac power control

This method is very efficient (efficiencies in excess of 90% can be

expected), offers fine control, and displays quite good load voltage regulation.
Owing to the high cost and mass of the Variac, it is usually limited to low-power
applications. The sliding contacts in the Variac may also have wear problems.

The tapped inductor method is a variation of the adjustable

autotransformer system. It has a limited number of adjustments and effectively
adds impedance in series with the load. The method is more efficient than the
rheostat method, but still does not provide very good load regulation. Figure
4 shows a tapped inductor connected to control the AC power in a load.

Figure 4 Tapped inductor power control

 The method is used for the speed control of ceiling fans and other low-
power applications. Control of high values of load power with this method
would necessitate large, expensive inductors.

The advantages of the method are that it is simple and efficient, while it
has the disadvantages that it is costly for medium to high power loads, has
poor load regulation and provides control only in discrete steps.

Thyristor Power Control

Thyristor control has largely superseded all other methods of AC power

control. It offers efficient and cost-effective control of power in most
applications from very low to very high power levels. Figure 5 shows a simplified
diagram for a thyristor power controller.

Figure 5 Thyristor AC power control

Thyristors are a family of electronic devices designed specifically to

provide power-control functions. They are in effect controlled switches.
Thyristors are turned on by a pulse of gate current, the gate being the control
lead on the device. Once turned on, these devices offer very little resistance
and hence dissipate very little power, resulting in high efficiencies.

Thyristor controllers achieve efficient AC power control by one of two

methods:

1. Phase-control—the AC waveform is ‘chopped up’ to achieve varying values of

load voltage. The load voltage waveforms are no longer sinusoidal, but in many
applications this is not a problem. The variable voltage is obtained by delaying
the ‘triggering’ of the thyristor and hence reducing the conduction time.

An advantage of this method is that it may be applied to AC or DC loads being

supplied from an AC supply. It has the disadvantage that it produces radio
frequency interference (RFI) when the thyristor is triggered. The waveforms
in Figure 6 represent typical load voltage waveforms supplied from a phase-
controlled thyristor controller.

Figure 6 Phase control load voltage waveforms

2. Zero voltage switching— was this method of control devised to overcome the
RFI generated by phase-control techniques. It operates in a similar manner to
a simmerstat in that the load voltage is controlled by controlling relative on/off
times. In this case, however, the on and off times will be measured in cycles.
 For high power, the thyristor will be turned on for a larger number of
cycles than it is off, and the reverse applies for low power. To minimize RFI, the
thyristor is switched as the supply voltage crosses zero or is at zero volts. Unlike
simmerstat control, this method may employ feedback from the load to provide
accurate control. This method is suited only to resistive loads such as heating
elements. It is unsuited to inductive loads. Typical waveforms are shown
in Figure 7.

Figure 7 Load waveforms for zero voltage switching

 Thyristor controllers are widely used in the control of AC power in
industrial and domestic applications. A thyristor controller may be designed
and constructed to control a lamp in a domestic situation or to control loads
such as a 1500 kW motor in industry.

Thyristor controllers have the advantage that they are relatively

inexpensive (taking running costs into account), highly efficient, reliable,
adaptable to most situations, have good load regulation, and are relatively
compact.

The disadvantages are that they might require complex trigger or control
circuits. Phase-control circuits produce radio frequency interference (RFI) and
most controllers produce non-sinusoidal waveforms that tend to generate
harmonics in the supply.

The thyristor devices most commonly used to control the power in a load are:

 Silicon-Controlled Rectifiers (SCRs)

 Gate Turn-Off Thyristors (GTO Thyristors)
 Triacs.

Thyristors are switching devices. They are triggered (switched) on by a

current pulse through a gate terminal. A thyristor must be accompanied by a
suitable triggering circuit in which the active component is known as a ‘trigger
device’. Trigger devices are:

 Unijunction Transistors (UJT)

 Programmable Unijunction Transistors (PUT)
 Diacs.