The centralized control of public lighting and off-peak loads by superimposed ripples

It is the author´s purpose in this paper to discuss the problems of collective control on modern supply networks, to examine various alternative methods, and to explain how, by the aid of superimposed high-frequency signals, any distribution network may be used as a signalling system which will enable a supply undertaking to exercise remote control of consumer circuits from its own power station. He concludes that recent developments in this field have placed in the hands of the supply industry a powerful weapon with which to attack the economical development of heating loads, as well as providing an elegant solution to commonplace difficulties of street-lighting control, to which the supply industry has become accustomed but not reconciled. The special application of superimposed control in war time for the extinction of public lighting and for the dissemination of warning signals is not discussed in great detail, as such problems are of political rather than technical interest. As to terminology, control systems using superimposed signals are variously referred to as ¿carrier control,¿ ¿phantom circuit control,¿ and ¿ripple control¿ systems. Of the three, the author prefers ¿ripple control,¿ since it´ avoids confusion with terms more properly applicable inother fields, yet gives a correct picture of the method itself.