when can we get rid of the power stabilizer?

For as far back as I can remember, we have always had electrical Stabilizer boxes connected to our home appliances. The story then was that it prevented connected appliances from damage due to electrical surges. This is still the same story today.

Stabilizer protecting a fridge

In Nigeria, electricity power supply is erratic. The voltage coming to your sockets might suddenly go high or Low (Transients) causing damage to your appliance. If the voltage goes low, the load current will increase and the resulting power is released as heat. This will cause damage to wiring and electronic circuitry. Just about everything electrical must be protected. This makes people spend more on protection.

More current produces heat

Types of Load
The load/appliances we normaly connect can be found in the following groups:

1. AC/DC Loads: these loads do not do well with low voltages. Newer models have a cutoff regulator if the voltages go below the threshold,it switches off. Examples include washing machines, fans and grinders. They will never reach their expected lifetime
2. Compressor loads: Typically, the compressor gas needs to settle before each start. Newer models have delays. The stabilizer can provide this delay. Examples are air-conditioners and fridges
3. Heating Coils: These generally don’t like spikes in voltages... but can tolerate a wide range. Examples include Irons, water heaters and tungsten bulbs.
4. Current appliances: These have evolved to Switch mode power supply. They can handle voltages from 110v to 240v. They tolerate a wide range of voltage. examples are LED TVs.

What is a Stabilizer?
An electrical Stabilizer is a device used to provide a constant voltage supply at its output for connected Loads like Televisions, Fridges and Air conditioners. Stabilizers come in different kinds of design but the working principle remains the same. Any drop or increase of the input voltage (Fluctuations) will cause the transformer to increase or decrease the secondary wiring connection through switching of relays. This will produce a constant desired output.

Why do we have Voltage Fluctuations in our Homes?
We have voltage fluctuations in homes for any of the following reasons:
• Bad wiring inside your House
• Bad wiring to your House
• Bad earthing
• Power overload of the local supplying Transformer

The first three problems can easily be fixed. You can get an electrician to check and correct any internal, external and earthing wiring problems. The last problem is out of your control. This is by far the major cause of power fluctuations. The power company's installed transformers in most neighborhoods, have an average capacity of 500KVA. These transformers can easily be oversubscribed. Corruption and the lack of investment in the power sector have caused the power demand to be more that the electricity provided per subscriber. The power company simply don't keep track of the connected load.

Overloaded 500 KVA transformer

Conclusion
In Nigeria, the lack of a good power infrastructure in the form of transformer numbers has made investment in stabilizers a necessity. I also discovered that countries like India and South africa also suffer from the same problem.
With the advent of better electronics in our appliances, the major problem now is the quality of electricity coming from the grid. Power companies should provide lower power transformers for lower numbers of subscribers(e.g 50 KVA per 10 homes). This will segment the distribution of power and increase efficiency. They can even enjoy lower downtime hours by this segmentation.

Lower power transformer(50 KVA for 10 homes)

images from my camera

For further reading

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Thanks for reading.