Performance study of Solid State fan regulators vis-a-vis Conventional fan regulators

By S. K. Srivastava Professor (Inst.) IRIEEN Nasi!Road

". #$%ective
There is an increased awareness among people regarding the importance of energy saving more so with the spiralling energy costs. In an effort to promote this facet of daily utility, many methods of energy saving techniques are being adopted by consumers. An array of electrical appliances that are energy efficient are flooding the market. One such item is ubiquitous fan regulator. We have all along been using the resistance type to control the speed of fans .This type has been the most popular but suffers inefficiency due to wastage of energy in the controlling resistance which remains in circuit through out the time when the fan is working . With the advent of solid state electronics, many firms now offer electronic regulators that are considered to be efficient as there are no resistance in the power circuit. In the coming years more and more of these type will replace the conventional resistance type regulators. y the year !"!#, we can safely presume that only electronic type will be available in the market. This paper deals with some of the negative attributes of solid state type regulators and methods to overcome these disadvantages. The ob$ective of this study is to compare the performance of solid state regulator with the conventional fan regulators. This has been carried out to study various parameters like active power, reactive power, Total power consumption, power factor and total harmonic distortion with solid state regulator and with conventional fan regulator over the entire range of its operation.

&. Circuit 'escri(tion

%or carrying out the above said performance study following circuit arrangement has been made.

0456.ATO07

/A01O(I+ A(A.2340 .OA-

)ig ". %an has been connected as load. Two solid state regulators of different makes and one conventional &resistive' type regulator has been connected in the circuit one by one. (OWA) * A+ power analy,er has been connected in the circuit to analy,e different parameters. With the above arrangement following study has been carried out. a' Analysis of different electrical parameters over the entire range of operation of regulators. b' Analysis of various electrical parameter at a particular speed with different type of regulators.

*. Performance of regulators over entire range of o(eration *." Real (o+er consum(tion
Active power consumption at different position of regulators has been recorded with different types of regulators and is shown in %ig !. It can be seen from %ig. ! that the active power consumption is high with conventional regulators over the entire range of operation when compared with the active power consumption with solid state regulator. -uring study one of the

make of solid state regulator has shown higher active power consumption at high speed. This may be due to its design.

Active Power

60
Conventional Pow er (w atts)

40
solid state make "y"

20
solid state make "x"

0
Range

)ig. &.

*.& Reactive Po+er Consum(tion

The reactive power consumption is very high with the solid state regulators in both makes when compared with the reactive power consumption with conventional regulators over the entire range of operation &%ig 8.'. In make 9 the reactive power consumption at higher speed reduces .

50 Power(Vars) 40 30 20 10 0

Reactive Power
solid state make "y" solid state make "x" Conventional

Range

)ig. *.

*.* ,otal (o+er Consum(tion

The total power consumption with solid state regulator make :9:, make :y: and with conventional regulator is shown in %ig. ;. It can be seen from the fig. ; that the total <A consumption i.e. loading on the supply system is more with solid state regulators because of the high reactive power consumption.

Total Power
60 40 VA
solid state make "x" solid state make "y" Conventional

20 0

Range

)ig. -.

*.- Po+er factor

=ower factor variation over the entire range of the operation with solid state regulators make :9: and make :y: and with conventional regulator is shown in %ig. #. It can be seen from the %ig. that the power factor with conventional regulator is almost unity over the entire range of operation. /owever with the solid state regulators power factor can be as low as ".88# at lower speed.

1.5 1 PF 0.5

Power Factor
Conventional solid state make "y" solid state make "x"

0 Range

)ig. ..

*.. ,otal /armonic distortion

The total harmonic distortion of the current is defined as

#"

#"

T/- > In! ? In!

n>! n>*

The (OWA )* A+ power analy,er has been provided with facility of direct measurement of the T/- in percentage. The total harmonic distortion with solid state regulators make :9: and make :y: and with conventional regulator is shown in fig. @.

Total Harmonic Distortion

80 thd (%) 60 40 20 0
solid state make "x" Conventional solid state make "y"

Range

)ig. 0. It can be seen from the %ig. @. that the total harmonic distortion is very high with solid state regulators in entire range of operation.

-. Performance of t1e regulators at a fi2ed s(eed

The performance of solid state and conventional regulators at a fi9ed output i.e. at a fi9ed speed of fan has been studied. %or this analysis the middle range of the conventional regulator i.e. position !,8 and ; has been selected. The speed of the fan corresponding to these positions of the conventional regulator has been recorded. 7peed corresponding to these position is A!A, B8* *"B! rpm respectively &for particular conventional regulator used in this study'. The parameters i.e. active power, reactive power, total power consumption, power factor and total harmonic distortion has been measured at these speeds. The same speed was fi9ed with solid

state regulators by ad$usting the knob and all those parameters were recorded and compared with the conventional make regulator. -." Real (o+er consum(tion

The real power consumption at different speeds with solid state and conventional regulators is given in %ig A. It can be seen that the real power consumption is high in case of the conventional fan regulators at all the three speeds. This is because of the power loss in the resistance of the conventional regulators. The difference in the consumption reduces at higher speed. The advantage of the solid state regulators therefore is less real power consumption.

Real Power
Power (watts) 60 40 20 0 727 931 Speed (rpm) 1092 pcon px py

)ig. 3.

-.& Reactive (o+er consum(tion

The reactive power consumption with different types of regulators at different speed is shown in %ig. C. It can be seen from %ig. C. that the reactive power consumption is very high with the solid state regulators at all the speeds. 0eactive power consumption with solid state regulators reduces with the speed but it is much higher than the reactive power consumption with the conventional regulators at the same speed.

Reactive Power
Power (vars) 30 20 10 0 727 931 Speed (rpm) 1092 qcon qx qy

)ig. 4.

-.* ,otal (o+er consum(tion

The total power consumption or the loading on the supply system transformer at different speed with different types of the regulators is given in %ig B. ecause of the higher reactive power consumption with the solid state regulators the total power consumption or the loading on the supply system is higher with the solid state regulators. The difference is higher at lower speed of operation of fan but at higher speed also total power consumption is higher in the solid state regulators.

Total Power
Pow er (VA) 60 40 20 0

scon sx sy 727 931

Speed (rpm )

1092

)ig. 5.

-.- Po+er factor

The power factor at different speed of operation with different regulators is given in %ig *".

Power Factor
1.5 PF 1 0.5 0 727 931 Speed (rpm) 1092 p con px py

)ig. "6 The power factor at all the three speeds is almost unity with conventional fan regulators. The power factor with the solid state regulators is much less when compared with the conventional regulators. The power factor with solid state regulators improves at higher speed but still poor than the conventional regulators.

-.. ,otal 1armonic distortion

The total harmonic -istortion &thd' with different types of the regulators is shown in %ig. **.
Total Harmonic Distortion
60 thd (%) 40 20 0

t!dcon t!dx t!dy 727 931

Speed (rpm)

1092

)ig. "" It can be observed from the %ig.** that the total harmonic distortion is very less in the conventional regulators &of the order of *.#D' which can be treated as negligible. The total harmonic distortion with solid state regulators is very high &of the order of ;")#"D'. The harmonic distortion in the solid state regulators reduces at higher speed.

.. Conclusion
%rom the above study and analysis of data it is clear that the a' 0eal power consumption is low in the solid state fan regulators when compared with the conventional fan regulators, but due to higher reactive power consumption with the solid state regulators the total power consumption or the loading on the supply system increases. At the same time the power factor is also poor with the solid state regulators. b' The total harmonic distortion is very high in the solid state regulators &of the order of #"D at lower speed'.

0. Recommendation
This study of performance of solid state regulators and conventional regulator has revealed certain points regarding higher reactive power consumption and total harmonic distortion as given in para #. To over come the above said problems following recommendations are madeE a' The reactive power consumption should suitably be compensated by the provision of the capacitors so that the overall loading of supply system is avoided by feeding the reactive power requirement through the capacitors. b' The design of the solid state regulators should be suitably modified to reduce the total harmonic distortion.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF