Opportunities galore!

Flagship showcase of the Indian electrical industry, organised by Indian Electrical And Electronic Manufacturer Association (IEEMA), brings together the ecosystem in March. The 2018 edition will focus on renewable energy, energy storage, digitisation; and electric transportations opportunities. The power sector of the country has witnessed a considerable change and evolution in the last two decades owing to several policy and regulatory measures. Further, continuous growth in population and increasing urbanisation and industrialisation have constantly added to the electricity demand in India, with 300 million of existing population yet to receive electricity connections and the remaining one billion population having intermittent access to the same. Programmes such as rural electrification and 'Power for All' have been accelerating power generation capacities and further, helping to build effective systems for demand-side management to ensure overall efficiency improvement across generation, transmission and distribution. This has contributed to the nation's energy demand expected to grow by 132 per cent by 2035 and is likely to surpass China's, besides double the aggregate demand of non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The primary growth drivers for rapid expansion in India's energy demand include growth in population, rising per capita energy consumption levels and investments in industrial and infrastructure development. Elecrama 2018 With nearly 70 GW of thermal power projects under various stages of construction, the upcoming edition of Elecrama 2018 is likely to provide opportunities for those in business, areas that are redefining the electricity space with the key components being renewable energy, energy storage, digitalisation of electricity through internet of things (IOT) and artificial intelligence (AI) and Electric Transportation opportunities. The exhibition will be the largest edition yet with over 40,000 square metres of pure exhibition space and additional 5,000 square metres of pavilions, displays and concurrent events.  The key new event additions to the exhibition are ETechNxt, which will be focusing on the new technology areas and will expose the electrical industry to new technology innovations and disruptions and equip them with information to manage the transformation to these new paradigm shifts. The exhibition will also host a power pavilion, a renewable energy pavilion, a railway pavilion and an international pavilion from many countries. The current show has attracted and hosted a whole new constituency of end users and industry segments like power electronics, renewables, electric transportation, energy storage and automation. The exhibition will also have a huge congregation of electrical trade that includes retailers, electricians, contractors, MSME suppliers, and vendors to manufacturers who will be engaged through special activities. What's more, it will also host a dedicated renewable energy pavilion that features technology and product display and, more importantly, will connect the equipment manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers to the key decision makers in end customers like utilities, EPCs, private power producers and captive generation customers segments. Product Parade Meanwhile, all the major players geared up to take the advantage of Elecrama, and have lined up product launches. Hitachi Hi-Rel Power Electronics, a pioneer in electronics is planning to launch the next generation product - I6et Industrial UPS at Elecrama 2018. Meanwhile, Eaton is showcasing its full breath of solutions across different zones as per its focus segment. So, whether you are a utility or machinery, original equipment manufacturer, or a building segment player, you will be able to see Eaton's solutions at one place. The company is also going to introduce some exciting new products at Elecrama this year. These include Eaton's RVAC SF6 Ring Main Unit (for more refer Eaton's RVAC SF6 on page no 40).  Above of all, a host of technologically advanced solutions that aim at addressing critical challenges in power management will be showcased by Eaton. For instance, many emerging mission-critical operations such as healthcare, manufacturing control, and transportation systems, are not well-suited for central data centres, even if redundant high-bandwidth network connections are in place. The amount of data some applications generate is simply too much to transport economically. To address the needs of localised IT processing Eaton recently launched the Eaton Micro Datacenter which will be showcased at Elecrama. A fully-contained environmental solution, Eaton's Micro Data Center will save time and cost, while maximising network reliability. Opportunities The size of the power equipment industry is valued at around $42 billion; a fourth of it is made up of power generation equipment, transmission and distribution contributing the rest. The industry provides direct employment to about 500,000 people and indirectly to about 1 million. India is aspiring to increase the output of the electrical equipment industry to $100 billion by 2022 and become a preferred destination for overseas producers of such equipment. Meanwhile, government's 'Make in India' programme has placed India on the world map as a manufacturing hub and gives global recognition to the Indian economy. India is expected to become the fifth largest manufacturing country in the world by the end of year 2020. The Government of India has set an ambitious target of increasing the contribution of manufacturing output to 25 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2025, from 16 per cent currently. India's manufacturing sector has the potential to touch $1 trillion by 2025. There is potential for the sector to account for 25-30 per cent of the country's GDP and create up to 90 million domestic jobs by 2025. That said, for Syed Sajjadh Ali, Managing Director - India, Electrical Sector, Eaton three key factors are currently driving demand in power equipment industry and shaping market opportunities: Resource and asset optimisation: The rising costs of energy and the need to stay competitive in a difficult economy means that resource efficiency has never been more important. Customers face tremendous challenges with respect to maintenance, alignment of the business strategy, and proliferation of risk due to the explosion in emerging technologies. To minimise cost and reduce risk, customers want to maximise energy-efficiency, decrease footprint, leverage stranded capacity, and extend the life of existing equipment. Resilience: The end customers expect uninterrupted access to services and instant interaction. Avoiding service interruptions and downtime is critical. As terabytes of information flow daily, application availability and resilience is mission critical.        Just-in-time capacity: Making the business sustainable requires customers to anticipate future growth. Customers need flexible, affordable solutions for their power needs. Modularity, flexibility and proportionality are at the heart of modern business systems. Meanwhile, to Aniruddh Brahmbhatt, Associate Vice President - Sales & Marketing, Industrial UPS Business Division, Hitachi Hi-Rel Power Electronics, the opportunities in the country's power sector are immense. Considering government's thrust on renewable - green and clean energy, Brahmbhatt envisages opportunities in non-conventional sources such as solar, wind, agriculture and domestic waste. To some extent Brahmbhatt is right! With 100-GW solar and 60-GW wind energy targets the future of power electronic equipment industry in renewable energy seems to be promising.  At the same time, energy efficiency and lower total cost of operation(TCO) will be the key. Even for Anand Bansal, Chief Executive Officer, India Uniper Power Services, renewables are becoming more cost competitive and the competition including international players is increasing. 'In the conventional space, we see a moderate growth in ancillaries particularly with respect to water conservation, flue gas desulphurisation and particulate matter emission,' he adds. But, for Hartek Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, Hartek Group, the near future will be full of challenges. He foresees the 10-per cent surcharge on customs duty for import of power equipments will hit the power sector on the whole. 'The equipment and generation industry is expecting an increase in costs across the value chain. Most of these products, which make up for more than 50 per cent of the cost of power, are governed by commodity pricing, which has witnessed an upswing in recent months,' he suggests. Organised vs Unorganised According to estimates, the market share of the unorganised sector among domestic manufacturers should be in the range of 25-30 per cent. The quality of products manufactured by unorganised players, though, is often questionable.The country's reliance on imports and legacy technologies is not reducing owing to lack of focus on research and development (R&D) of cost-effective and efficient technologies. However, says Hartek Singh, 'àwith the government's renewed focus on standardising the tax regime and curbing unorganised market, the organised sector is witnessing consolidation.'  'With private developers and electricity boards implementing stringent quality norms, the quality and efficiency of the entire system has improved considerably.' In general, believes Anand Bansal, the share of unorganised sector is limited to non-core equipment and consumables. 'More than quality, we believe it is the reliability and wherewithal of small (not necessarily domestic) manufactures that could be a cause of concern,' he adds. According to him, market is following global trends and norms of free trade so far as technology or import is concerned. Importing also helps shorten the learning curve attached to many such things. But, what we notice is that along with imports, there is a strong focus on in-sourcing and localising the content. For instance, at India Uniper, we are definitely sourcing lot of experience and expertise from our global partner, but at the same we are training, upskilling and doing the necessary skill/knowledge transfer to overall develop the power sector in India. 'India is actually ahead in many respects. For example if you talk about steam boilers, few Indian plants have more sophisticated and modern technologies compared to even the western countries,' added Bansal. Emerging Technologies With government's major thrust on clean energy technology, requirement of power electronics equipments in clean energy differ from the conventional power generation equipment. Demand for equipment in these industries is growing and will continue to grow in the near future. 'Indian companies can contribute exports for all the power electronics equipments for this industry. i.e. inverters, UPS, chargers etc.,' feels Aniruddh Brahmbhatt from Hitachi Hi-Rel Power Electronics. For Eaton, technology has always evolved towards improving safety, enhancing ease of use, increasing efficiency and delivering more ROI. According to Syed Sajjadh Ali, there are two technologies which are noteworthy. Lithium-Ion batteries are surely one technology that will transform multiple industries. With its high energy density and design life cycle, its deployment is becoming one of the major trends in the Automobiles, Power, and IT industry. Internet of Things (IoT): The growing number of connected devices or the IoT is disrupting many existing business models and creating new opportunities. According to Hartek Power, technologies which are set to impact pricing come under three categories, namely storage, smart grid and electricity generation. Energy storage involves innovative and cost-effective ways of storing energy through batteries and fuel cells. Smart grid is a set of technologies which enables more efficient use of energy. Electricity generation involves technologies that generate power from various renewable and non-renewable sources of energy. The adoption of latest technologies is leading to more favourable pricing and contributing to higher efficiency. Fuel cell storage technologies, for instance, require a constant source of fuel and oxygen, but can produce electricity constantly for as long as the fuel and oxygen are in ready supply. Smart grid technologies are also witnessing rapid advances. A typical modern smart grid network mimics internet as it channels heat, energy and natural gas, conceivably hydrogen too, from local and distant sources. The latest developments in the sphere of electricity generation include tidal turbines, which have a potential for large-scale expansion, solar panel positioning robots, which can reposition solar panels according to weather conditions and work out to be more efficient than attaching each panel to motorised tracking assemblies, photovoltaic transparent glass with integrated solar cells and space-based solar power, which collects solar power in space and beams it back to the surface of the earth in the form of microwaves. Hitachi I6et Industrial UPS Hitachi I6et Industrial UPS is available in the range of 30 kVA to 500 kVA and targets the entire gamut of industries like oil & gas, power plant, minerals & metals, pharmaceuticals, fertilisers & chemicals, plastic, textile industry, automobile, telecommunication installations, transportation systems, medical & healthcare, railways & metro rails, security operations for varieties of its applications. The system has DSP-controlled insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) rectifier, IGBT inverter, galvanic isolation transformer and bi-directional static switch. By providing additional hardware like paralleling kit, bypass line equipment, disconnecting and safety devices distribution cabinet, monitoring software and communication solution, the UPS system offers complete solutions for AC load protection. It offers an array of benefits like its double conversion topology offers protection for all the industries, its most advanced technology offers an extremely flexible and reliable UPS protection as well as offers excellent battery management. Eaton's RVAC SF6 Ring Main Unit With advanced safety and ergonomically designed features The RVAC RMU is smart grid ready and immensely improves ease of operation and user experience. The highly compact design, with logical mechanical and electrical interlocks, improves personal safety and makes fault detection easy and quick. Eaton's VS1 Vacuum Circuit Breaker (VCB): A medium voltage breaker the VS1 VCB operates on mature spring operation mechanism adopting Eaton VI technology. It is highly reliable, provides operational convenience, long life and easy maintenance. Eaton's PSL series Air Circuit Breakers (ACB): The highly reliable PSL series delivers performance without compromise as it comes with a very high arc handling capacity. The PSL is operates with a special grease to work for low temperature (up to -40 C). PSL ACBs offers excellent mechanical and insulation capability, enhanced product and electrical lifecycle and highly reduced bounce. - RAHUL KAMAT