Automatic Voltage Regulators and Power Conditioners

An AVR is at the heart of devices often called power conditioners or power stabilizers. The typical power conditioner is an automatic voltage regulator combined with one or more other power-quality capabilities such as:

• Surge suppression
• Short circuit protection (circuit breaker)
• Line noise reduction
• Phase-to-phase voltage balancing
• Harmonic filtering, etc.

Power conditioners are typically used in low voltage (< 600V) applications and sizes below 2,000 kVA. See Power Quality versus Line Drop Compensation.

Since there is no official definition of a power conditioner, there are some devices marketed as power conditioners that do not provide automatic voltage regulation. This fact and the wide variation in capability between products make it imperative the buyer does his or her homework to match product functionality and application needs.