GE begins export of 765kV gas insulated sub-station

GE flagged off the export of its first 765kV Gas Insulated Substation (GIS) made in a dedicated line at its manufacturing unit near Chennai.

In an interaction with BusinessLine , Rathin Basu, Managing Director, GE T&D India Ltd, said this expands the company’s offerings in GIS which till now ranged from 66 kV to 400 kV.

The unit in Padappai, an industrial hub about 25 km from Chennai, also produces 66kV to 765 kV AIS (Air Insulated Switchgear) which will soon be expanded to 1200 kV.

The first of the 765kV GIS unit is being exported to the Chile utility for their Nueva Cardones GIS substation.

The order was bagged by GE Energy Connections in France as a turnkey contract in 2015. It was designed, developed and manufactured at Chennai in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence for GIS in GE Energy Connections, France.

The significance is that GE worldwide “has more faith in India to support the global demand”, Basu said.

Also, the capability is available locally to supply to domestic needs which is expected to pick up.

The GIS unit as compared with an AIS unit is compact and needs just 20 per cent of the land area and can even be put underground freeing the ground level for any other purpose, he said.

This is a valuable saving in urban centres where land prices are high.

As of June, the GE T&D unit has an order backlog of ₹8,000 crore which is the equivalent of over two years’ sales.

In the domestic market, it hopes to target Central and State transmission, generation utilities and steel and aluminium units in the private sector.

Nearly 70 per cent of its order book is from the public sector as private investments have been depressed over the last four years.

But there are some domestic tenders in the pipeline, he said.

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