Electricity + Control December 2019

Product News

TRANSFORMERS + SUBSTATIONS

Marthinusen & Coutts invests in its Zambian facility A new 435 m² machine shop workshop and transformer department at Marthinusen & Coutts’ facility in Kitwe, Zambia, will further improve the quality and turnaround time of its services in the region.

According to Marthinusen & Coutts Zambia General Manager Eugene Lottering, the commissioning of the machine shop workshop in January this year created significant space in the 1 700 m² main workshop, allowing for the investment in a transformer department. “We now have a dedicated factory for machining work- pieces for the main shop,” says Lottering. “The Marthinusen & Coutts head office in Johannesburg plays a key role in our operations, sending its machine shop foreman to provide training.This enables us to upgrade local Zambian machining skills on a continual basis.” The division’s machine shop facility boasts five machining lathes, two milling machines and a submerged arc welding machine. It also has a 50-tonne horizontal press and rotor binding machine. All equipment operates under two 6.3-tonne jib cranes. “Our transformer department has allowed us to enter the market in transformer repairs. The facility is equipped with a 20-tonne overhead crane to lift larger transformers,” he says. The facility is also equipped with a new coil machine, ratio tester, an oil purification machine and a dedicated oven.

Marthinusen & Coutts’ facility in Kitwe, Zambia.

New JVC to manufacture hollow core insulators in India Grasim Industries Limited (Grasim) and Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen GmbH (MR) of Germany have formed a joint venture company (JVC) in India for the manufacture and sale of composite hollow core insulators (CHCI) to serve the power transmission and distribution industry globally. The JVC, Aditya Birla Power Composites Limited (ABPCL), will set up a state-of-the-art CHCI manufacturing plant at Halol, Gujarat, India.

this segment. Through cutting-edge technology and world class manufacturing, this JV will offer high-end competitive, innovative and sustainable solutions to our customers globally, and it reaffirms our commitment to ‘Make-in-India to serve the world’.” Dr Nicolas Maier-Scheubeck, CEO of the Reinhausen Group, says, “We look forward to expanding our presence in India, which is an attractive market and a very competitive location for

manufacturing such a high quality product. We are delighted to partner with such a large and reputed group for this venture, sharing our focus on quality and customer performance.” For more information visit Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen www.reinhausen.com

ABPCL brings together Aditya Birla Insulators – a unit of Grasim and the third largest global porcelain insulator player – and Reinhausen Power Composites – a unit of MR and the second largest hollow composite insulator player globally – with over five decades of combined experience in the insulator industry. The JVC will build a fully integrated composite hollow core insulators plant at Halol, bringing the latest technology for composite hollow insulators from Europe. It will serve the insulator requirements of Indian and global OEMs in the power equipment industry, helping them to enhance their product proposition for transmission and distribution utilities worldwide. The fastest growing segment of insulators, composite hollow core insulators improve the performance and safety of power equipment. The new facility will be the first such large scale plant for this range of products in India and will be the largest such plant outside of China. Mr Kalyan RamMadabhushi, CEO - Global Chemicals and Group Business Head - Fertilisers and Insulators, Aditya Birla Group, says, “As an insulating solutions provider to the power industry for over 50 years, Grasim sees this venture as a natural next step and we are happy to partner with MR, the global quality leader in

Composite hollow core insulators for the highest mechanical and electrical requirements. (Photo Credit: RPC)

26 Electricity + Control

DECEMBER 2019