WCA May 2012

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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2012 27
India
Race for AP
transmission project
Rural Electrification Corporation has received financial
bids from seven infrastructure companies to lay a
transmission line to connect power projects in Andhra
Pradesh with the central grid. A decision is expected by
mid-March.
The interested companies are PowerGrid Corporation,
Larsen and Toubro, Sterlite Grid, IVRCL, NCC Infrastructure
Holding, Ind Bharath Power Gencom and Megha
engineering consortium and Elecnor and KEC Intl
consortium.
The BOOM project involves erecting 100m tall 765kV DC
towers to move power across the Godhavari river – a region
prone to storms and cyclones. Lack of data on wind speed
in the regions has been a major drawback for transmission
companies bidding for the project. Moreover, the lines will
travel through the disputed Telangana region, which can
pose its own challenges.
“We need at least 50 years’ data on wind speed in these
regions to arrive at a cost, considering that the transmission
towers have to be used for next 30 years or so. Moreover,
fluctuating aluminium and steel prices may also spring up
some surprise,” said a spokesperson of Sterlite Group.
Rural Electrification Corporation – India
Email:
Website:
Mumbai to get more
power
Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) has commissioned a
transmission link on the Maharashtra State Transmission
Company’s Boisar – Borivali transmission line, bringing
power to Mumbai from the city outskirts. The link will help
provide an additional 150MW power from the outskirts, as it
will ease congestion on the city’s transmission network,
especially during summer, when demand peaks.
The Mumbai transmission network is facing congestion due
to rising demand as well as lack of adequate transmission
corridors to bring in additional power. The new 220kV
loop-in-loop-out (LILO) line, constructed near Ghodbunder,
was charged by the transmission utilities in mid-February.
Mr Lalit Jalan, CEO Reliance Infrastructure, said RInfra is
the transmission and distribution licensee for Mumbai for
the next 25 years. It has recently commissioned three new
EHV (extra high voltage) substations to de-congest load on
transmission and sub-transmission systems, and plans to
add more substations to the existing six.
Reliance Infrastructure – India
Email:
Website:
Happy landing for
ME cables
Indian IT firm Sify Technologies has established an undersea
cable landing station in Mumbai to accommodate the rapid
growth in voice and rich media traffic from and to the Middle
East and Africa.
“Sify is being increasingly recognised as a leading
integrated ICT company and this cable landing station is an
important milestone in our journey,” said Raju Vegesna,
CEO and managing director of Sify Technologies.
“With capacity to land additional submarine cable systems,
this connectivity will open a larger market for our
industry-leading managed enterprise and data centre
services in the Middle Eastern market,” he added.
Gulf Bridge International (GBI) will be the first company to
land its sub-sea cable system at the Sify landing station,
which is designed with a capacity of up to 10 terabits per
second on certain sections.
Sify Technologies – India
Fax: +91 442 254 0771
Email:
Website:
Sterlite Grid seeks FIPB
recognition
Sterlite Grid Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sterlite
Technologies, is seeking Foreign Investment Promotion
Board (FIPB) acceptance for investing into Indian
companies involved in power transmission and generation
projects. A proposal submitted to the FIPB by the company
states that Sterlite Grid aims to be an investing company to
undertake downstream investments.
While Sterlite Technologies is involved in manufacturing
optic fibre cables and transmission equipment for telecom
and power sector, Sterlite Grid is executing multi-million
dollar power transmission system projects across India, via
its fully owned subsidiary companies – EastNorth
Interconnection, BhopalDhule Transmission and Jabalpur
Transmission.
Sterlite has been awarded three projects for building power
transmission systems (lines and substations) in India, on a
Build-Own-Operate-Maintain basis.
Company officials said that the approach to FIPB is aimed
at making Sterlite Grid the holding company for similar
special purpose vehicles formed as, and when, the
company is awarded projects from the Government in the
future.
Sterlite Grid Ltd – India
Fax: +91 203 051 4000
Email:
Website: