Patent ID: 7702272

Claim:
A power control method for controlling an electric power to be supplied to a heating part including a single or plural heating units, the heating part heating a medium to be heated via a heating object, comprising: switching between a first power control mode for controlling an electric power to be supplied to the heating part to a setting value of electric power based on the temperature of the heating object and a second power control mode for forced-driving the heating part by an electric power more than the setting value of electric power, depending on a status of operation of each of components of an apparatus including the heating part, wherein the first power control mode is switched to the second power control mode so that an electric power which is more than the setting value of electric power is supplied to the heating part, based on the occasion an electric power supplied to the apparatus is lower than a rated electric power of the apparatus due to a decrease in power consumption of each of the components of the apparatus, the forced driving is burst driving, the setting value of electric power to be supplied to the heating part during the burst driving is controlled depending on the status of operation of each of the components of the apparatus, the switching between the first power control mode and the second power control mode is synchronously performed with a second control cycle of the second power control mode which is longer than a first control cycle of the first power control mode, the heating part are subjected to forced driving during the second power control mode by being supplied with electric power for a predetermined duration per one second control cycle, the second control cycle is an integer times as long as the first control cycle, and an updating cycle for updating value of temperature of the heating object used during the first power control mode is an integer times as long as the first control cycle for the heating part.