Toshiba to invest USD 30 million to expand power biz in India

Japanese firm Toshiba Corporation will invest about USD 30 million for expanding its production capacity in the power transmission and distribution business in India.

The investment is part of the company's plan to invest USD 100 million in Indian power sector by 2016.

"Toshiba Corporation will reinforce its transmission and distribution (T&D) business in India with a 3 billion yen (approximately USD 30 million) investment in new production capacity at Toshiba Transmission & Distribution Systems India Private Ltd (TTDI) in Hyderabad," the company said in a statement.

"India is a high-growth market that Toshiba has positioned as a strategic base for its power-related businesses.

"In the period to FY16, Toshiba plans to invest a cumulative 10-billion yen (approximately USD 100 million) in its T&D business there, including this current round of investment," said Katsutoshi Toda, CMD, TTDI.

"Toshiba is seeking to secure a 20 per cent share of the Indian market by 2018, and also reinforce TTDI as a core T&D production base for other major markets, including Europe, ASEAN, and Africa," Toda said.

A new facility for large power transformers will come on line in 2015 at Hyderabad at the same time as the full scale launch of a new unit for switchgears.

Alongside its existing production line of small and medium capacity transformers and low and medium voltage switchgears, the new power transformer line will support production of 765 kV (kilovolt) transformers with a capacity of 500 MVA (mega volt ampere), while the new switchgear line will produce high voltage products.

Toshiba established TTDI in 2013 by acquiring T&D business from Vijai Electricals for 20 billion yen or approximately USD 200 million, and also started operation of a new power transformer facility in Russia in February 2014.