BHEL R&D spend to touch Rs 1000cr in 2011-12

With in-house products fast adding up to the company's topline, Hyderabad-based Bharat Heavy Eletricals Limited (BHEL)-Corporate R&D is targeting to increase its annual R&D spend to Rs 1,000 crore by the year 2011-12 from the present Rs 238 crore.

Apart from the frontier research encompassing nanotech, surface engineering, fuel cells among other ongoing initiatives, the BHEL R&D wing is planning to invest heavily in the indigenous development of various components for super critical thermal power plants and other advanced technology turbines and new generation power equipment, S K Goyal, group general manager, BHEL Corporate R&D, said here today.

While the organisation's R&D spend has been doubled over the past two years at Rs 238 crore, an increase of 58 per cent over the expenditure incurred during the previous year, the turnover of in-house products was up 88 per cent at Rs 2,510 crore during the year 2006-07, compared with Rs 1,152 crore in the previous year.

"Our aim is to increase the R&D spend to 2 per cent of the total turnover of BHEL," he told the media at the annual press conference here on Tuesday.

According to Goyal, the Corporate R&D has filed a patent for the indigenously developed high-speed impulse steam turbine. A three-phase AC drive for 700 HP diesel electric locomotive, developed by the Corporate R&D, has surpassed some of the benchmarks during the tests conducted in Italy.

The indigenously developed gas insulated substation (GIS) has already been put to commercialisation with the Andhra Pradesh Transmission Corporation (APTransco) placing orders for two 132 kv GIS units. "We are also working on 400 kv GIS units, which will be manufactured at the Bhopal plant," he said.