BHEL for locomotives, transmission

BHEL has identified transportation and transmission as the two major emerging areas that in addition to its existing core business of power equipment manufacturing would drive the company’s growth in the next three to four years.

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) has identified transportation and transmission as the two major emerging areas that in addition to its existing core business of power equipment manufacturing would drive the company’s growth in the next three to four years.

HT Image

BHEL Chairman and Managing Director B.P. Rao told Hindustan Times his company is in the process of joining hands with the Railways, which is constructing two new major facilities for manufacturing high power electric and diesel locomotives.

“These two facilities are coming up in Bihar and would essentially cater to the demand of locomotives for the proposed high speed dedicated freight corridor project,” Rao said. BHEL also plans to manufacture 100 high speed locomotives a year.

BHEL, he said, has already tied up with General Electric as the technology partner for the diesel locomotives and is in the process of tying up with an international partner for manufacturing electric locomotives.

“We are looking at a time frame of three years for manufacturing these high power locomotives or high horse power locos of 7,000 and 9,000 HP and going up to 12,000 HP in future,” Rao said.

In transmission, BHEL is presently the leader in the 400kV segment. For the higher voltage segment, BHEL has recently established a JV with Toshiba and has plans to manufacture sets of 700 KV and 1200 kV.

For the HVDC transmission, BHEL is working with ABB. “The two of us have already bagged the contract for building the first 800kV transmission line in India and second in the world.