WCA May 2012

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.

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 : info@sifycorp.com Website : www.sifycorp.com 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.

Rural Electrification Corporation – India Email : info@recindia.nic.in Website : www.recindian.nic.in 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.

Sterlite Grid Ltd – India Fax : +91 203 051 4000 Email : communications@sterlite.com Website : www.sterlite.com

Reliance Infrastructure – India Email : energy.helpdesk@relianceada.com Website : www.rinfra.com

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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2012