BHEL creating capacities to meet country's capacity addition targets

Ultra-modern Blade Shop at Haridwar being upgraded to manufacture.

Advanced design blades for 15,000 MW sets per annum by 2009

Aimed at equipping itself to meet the country's ambitious power generating capacity addition target in the 11 th and 12 th Five Year Plans , Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited ( BHEL ) has adopted a multi-pronged capacity and capability building strategy .

In addition to holistic modernization of facilities, the company is augmenting its manufacturing capacity to 15,000 MW per annum by 2009 . As part of its capacity expansion in the next two years, BHEL is upgrading the Ultra-modern Blade Shop set up at its Haridwar plant in 2003.

The company has already invested Rs.1,800 Million on the state-of-the-art Blade Shop and is now investing another Rs.2,200 Million to upgrade the production capacity of advanced design blades to 2.25 lakh blades for 15,000 MW sets per annum by 2009. With this, BHEL will become fully capable of manufacturing advanced design blades for thermal sets up to 1,000 MW capacity.

Advanced design blades are used in thermal sets for better efficiency and lower heat rate and were being imported prior to the setting up of this Blade Shop.

BHEL is also setting up a new Fabrication Plant and a Central Stamping Unit at Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh. The new centralised facilities are being set up by BHEL at a cumulative initial investment of Rs.3,060 Million aimed at meeting vital aspects of power plant equipment manufacture and will help in speedy execution of power projects.

The Fabrication Plant is being set up to meet the burgeoning requirement of fabricated components and assemblies required by BHEL's major units . The plant will produce around 25,000 MT per annum including about 16,000 MT of structures for Boilers for direct dispatch to power plant sites in the eastern and northern regions.

The Central Stamping Unit is being set up to meet the increased requirement of stampings, a critical part of electrical machines , due to the growth in business and market demand for Generators and Electrical Motors. The demand for stampings is estimated to go up to 13 Million per year by 2010-11, for which a centralised unit is being set up to get the benefit of economy of scale. The new unit will have a capacity to meet the full demand in the country for such stampings.

BHEL has also taken steps for upgradation/introduction of new technologies . It has acquired new technology to produce thermal power equipment with super-critical parameters for the next higher rating 800 MW sets and above . Besides, introduction of higher rating hydro turbine generator sets and Advanced class Gas Turbines has been planned to cater to upcoming market requirements .