BHEL establishes state-of-the-art Instrument Calibration Centre for enhancing precision and accuracy of testing of thermal sets

New Delhi, March 14: As part of its ongoing capability upgradation and capacity expansion programme, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has achieved a major milestone by establishing a state-of-the-art Instrument Calibration Centre in Noida.

The centre was formally inaugurated by Mr. Ashok K. Puri, Chairman and Managing Director of BHEL, today.

Established at a cost of nearly Rs.32 Million, the centre will help in enhancing the precision and accuracy of Performance Guarantee Test of Thermal Sets of various ratings, thereby supporting the company’s efforts to meet the challenging capacity addition target during the 11th Five Year Plan.

BHEL conducts Performance Guarantee (PG) Tests of thermal sets ranging from 60 MW to 500MW to prove the equipment capacity and efficiency. Such tests are also carried on smaller sets as required in individual contracts. These tests are done in line with National and International codes such as ASME, DIN, BS and IEC. As these tests are done to prove equipment performance, the instruments used demand a very high degree of accuracy.

The present Electricity Act and Regulatory Commission requirements have placed greater emphasis on maintaining operational efficiency and availability from power stations for tariff realisation. Keeping this in view, for conducting precise PG tests, the repeatability and accuracy of the test instruments is to be calibrated with high precision before each site test is taken up. Therefore, calibration requirements are much more stringent than the test instrumentation.

In addition to meeting exacting requirements of calibration, this facility will reduce the turn around time for calibration of precision PG Test Instrumentation, thereby enabling PG testing of more projects.

Prior to the setting up of this centre, such calibration facilities were available only in the National Physical Laboratory and a few Standardization Testing Quality Certification (STQC) laboratories of the Ministry of Information Technology, Govt. of India.

Aimed at gearing up to meet the country's capacity addition targets towards the agenda of providing ‘Power to all by 2012’, BHEL is investing more than Rs.12,000 Million for holistic modernization and capacity expansion of its facilities from 6,000 MW per annum at present to 10,000 MW per annum. BHEL also has plans to further increase its capacity to 15,000 MW as required by the country’s power sector in the eleventh five-year plan.