The poor power condition in India has created a huge market for voltage regulators. “Particularly in the rural areas in India, the voltage condition is always dismal. So there is a huge market for voltage regulators,” adds Sunil Bafna, proprietor, Pixel Electro Controls. Niraj Kumar Mishra, CMD, Ekta Telecommunication & Systems justifies, “Voltage regulators have always had a very bright market in India because of the poor power conditions.
By: Jesus Milton Rousseau S.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009: The voltage regulator market depends on the quality of electricity supply, since the quality of power in India has not improved much; voltage regulators still have a bright future.” Shaji S, director, Convergence Power Systems Pvt Ltd says, “Due to unpredictable utility power fluctuations the voltage regulator market is bright.” But, the market is affected by voltage- stabiliser free appliances and lowpriced UPS market, as Bafna points out, “Nowadays few appliance companies are introducing appliances featuring voltage-stabiliser free operations, which has given a negative growth in a few segments of the voltage regulators.” The growth of low priced UPS market has influenced the sales of voltage regulators in India. Mishra states, “Approximately every part of India is facing the problem of unstable power problem, which has given rise to a wide market for voltage regulators. In my view in the last five years the growth rate of voltage regulators has come down due to the low cost UPS which has an inbuilt voltage regulator.”
Voltage regulator market
The voltage regulator market size is estimated to be around Rs 8000 to Rs 10,000 million and growing at a rate of 10 per cent. “The voltage regulator market size is approximately Rs 8000 to Rs 10,000 million,” says Shaji. Bafna. “The size of the market is very big because it has very wide applications. Each and every sector needs regulated voltage for the equipments and appliances. Thegrowth rate is around 10 per cent.”
Servo voltage regulators, automatic boost buck type and automatic voltage regulators (AVR) are the fast moving or best selling voltage regulators whereas constant voltage transformers (CVT) are the slow moving products in the market. Shaji says, “Quantity wise the regular AVRs upto 4 KVA are the fast moving ones as they are used in small office/ home office (SOHO) applications.” And Bafna adds, “Automatic boost buck type regulators are the fast moving, others like servo and CVT are the slow moving products in the market. Automatic boost buck type regulators are used in all the appliances like TV, refrigerator, AC, mainline and water pumps. Hence there is a regular high demand of these items and is sold in large quantities. Whereas servo stabiliser and CVT have specific use is machineries, so their volume is lesser.”
Types and uses
There are various types of voltage regulators such as CVT, servo voltage regulator, solid-state voltage regulator, automatic voltage regulator and constant voltage constant frequency (CVCF). Voltage regulators are used for stable or regulated voltage in almost all applications where a regulated power supply is required. Voltage regulators have very vast areas of application; they are used in all appliances, IT sector, CNC machines, digital labs, offset machines, packaging machines, etc.
Raw Material Cost
The cost of voltage regulator depends on its raw material-copper and electronic components cost. Shaji says,“The cost of voltage regulators depends on input raw material costs like copper and iron.” Further Anoop Lalwani, CEO, Sai Enterprises justifies, “The cost is dependent on the basic cost of raw material, electronic circuitry, transformers, metal box etc.” Bafna explains and questions,
“Basically there are three main raw materials: copper, core and electronics components. All these three variants are dependent on the international market. In the recent past there have been major ups and downs in these items. Due to which all the manufacturers are facing problems. What price should we quote?” Mishra feels, “In India cost of voltage regulator is affected by low priced UPS, which is the main hurdle. And, since the cost of copper is not getting cheaper it is badly affecting the cost of voltage regulators. So, companies have designed and developed a very low cost line conditioner that does not need copper component such as transformer.”
What’s latest?
The latest voltage regulators are microcontroller based and IGBT controlled. “In recent years many latest technologies have arrived in the market after development of new and useful microcontrollers. Companies have developed advance voltage regulators using Switching Mode Power Supply (SMPS),” says Mishra. The latest addition to the voltage regulator segment is the static voltage regulators. Their correction rate is 1000 volts per second, compared to just 40 to 50 volts per second in servo stabilisers. It is designed using Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) and microcontrollers. Having no moving part or mechanical relay operation, hence it is very useful where there are regular voltage fluctuations, but it is very costly in smaller capacities. “Also another latest technique in voltage regulators is use of microcontroller-based circuits,” adds Bafna.
Bright future
The future of voltage regulators market is bright. Bafna says “The future is bright as voltage regulators cater to the needs of domestic application to industrial sector.” The future is bright as the latest version of voltage and frequency regulators that is CVCF is mainly used in food processing industry and medical industry, concludes Shaji. Now, let us have a look at some of the key players in the field of voltage regulators.
Sai Enterprises/Advance Industries:
Sai Enterprises is into manufacturing f stabilisers for the last 30 years. The company offers stabilisers from 250va upto 100 kva–both single phase and three phase type. The company has designed stabilisers from 50 volts till 400 volts AC in single-phase version and 270- 550 V in three phase version. The company manufactures and distributes SMPS, DC-DC converters, various types of 1-phase and 3-phase transformer, torodial transformers, CVTs, Inverters, UPS systems, battery chargers, audio/video pancake erasers, all types of stabilisers, Solar products and panels. They also provide consultancy for wind power generators and provide various types of fibre optic light guides/ring lights for medical usage, for doctors etc. At present they make special inverters/backup supplies for lifts, cars, buses.
Convergence Power Systems Pvt
Ltd: Convergence Power Systems Pvt Ltd was established in 2001. The company is ISO 9001:2000 certified. They are into manufacturing, distributing and exporting power products. Their product range includes: Industrial AVR’s from 5 KVA to 50 KVA, servo regulated AVR’s from 1 KVA to 1000 KVA, online UPS from 1 KVA to 100 KVA, industrial and domestic inverters from 600 VA to 60 KVA, CVCF 3 KVA to 60 KVA, CVT, servo voltage stabiliser, power line conditioning equipment, battery cell PI devise (for BSNL).
Ekta Telecommunication and Systems:
Ekta Telecommunication and Systems is an ISO 9001:2000 certified (design, development and manufacture) SSI unit at Jamshedpur. The company is engaged in manufacturing and exporting of high quality UPS systems, solar power products, inverters, line conditioner, DC power supplies, sensors, control systems. They are also engaged in R&D in the field of power systems, non-conventional energy source and nano–technology. “At present we are manufacturing CVT, Servo voltage regulator and Triac based voltage regulator cum Line conditioner. We have developed SMPS-based voltage regulator utilising latest technology,” adds Mishra. Ekta Telecommunication and Systems has been bestowed the national award twice for the best entrepreneur category instituted by the ministry of SSI, government of India in recognition of the best performance at national level. The company has also been conferred Jharkhand Udyog Ratna award 2001 and 2002 consecutively for two years and state level awards consecutively for five years for their outstanding performance by the government of Jharkhand.
Pixel Electro Controls:
Pixel Electro Controls was established in 1990. The company is a leading manufacturer of power control equipments like inverter, UPS, online UPS, voltage stabilisers, Servo controlled stabilisers, CVTs etc. The company has two ISO 9001:2000 certified manufacturing facilities at Kota (Rajasthan) and at Roorkee (U.K.). The company manufactures following voltage regulators: Automatic boost buck type 0.25 KVA to 10.0 KVA, Automatic wall mounted type 4.0 KVA to 5.0 KVA, Manual auto cut type 1.0 KVA to 5.0 KVA, CVT 500 VA to 5000 VA, Servo controlled stabiliser 2.0 KVA to 50.0 KVA. The company has a complete range of power conditioning equipments for domestic, commercial and industrial applications. Their turbo sine wave inverter is especially designed for heavy machineries, petrol pumps, lifts, shopping malls etc. which is a perfect substitute for generators. Pixel’s CVT is best suited for the applications, which require constant output voltage with isolation transformer. Hence it is best suited for costly medical equipments, electronic control panels of petrol pumps & other electronic equipments.
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