Sensor networks are dense wireless networks consisting of groups of small, low-cost nodes, which collect and disseminate critical data. Wireless sensor networks facilitate monitoring and controlling of physical environments from remote locations with better accuracy. They are employed in a vast variety of fields - civil, home, environment, health, and military. Sensor nodes have various energy and computational constraints because of their inexpensive nature and ad hoc method of deployment. Considerable research has been focused at overcoming these deficiencies through various power control schemes. Five basic schemes have been chosen to be studied in this paper. The motivation of the first scheme is twofold, limiting multi-user interference to increase single-hop throughput and reducing power consumption to prolong battery life. The second scheme focuses on energy-aware routing. The third scheme contributes to a dynamic increase of the lifetime of the sensor network. The fourth scheme prolongs the lifetime of wireless sensor networks by cross-layer interaction. Finally, the fifth scheme focuses on the major energy wastage sources while achieving good scalability and collision avoidance capability. The survey attempts to provide an overview of these issues as well as the solutions proposed in recent literature.