Upsurge in transformer replacement market

Sanjib Mitra, Country Head Sales and Marketing- Transformers and Solar Solutions, Electrotherm (India) Ltd.

Massive refurbishment in every substation
Rural electrification (DDUGJY) and Discom Assurance (UDAY) are the two fundamental initiatives which were rolled out by Indian government in reviving the power sector scenario in India recently. No doubt that these schemes have motivated power industries in terms of growth and empowerment. The power industry has always been one of the basic industries for economical growth of any country like roadways and water supply. The massive refurbishment observed in each and every important substation for capacity expansion has invited huge amount of tenders for supply as well as services of electrical goods (Transformers) and associated industries (Telecom). Meanwhile the smart grid also joined hand for further acceleration in the same direction. Overall approach for digitisation of the power generation as well as power usage by employing smart meters and feedback control system has increased power flow efficiency and accurately controlled and minimised transmission and distribution (T&D) losses. “We hardly see power cut nowadays even in small towns which helps communication within society and outside with ease. It not only support business activities but helps overall the economy in a large scale to grow on a right trajectory. The usage of more and more luxury electrical goods in small towns and villages are an indication of stable and reliable power supply. The life style change is gradually taking place in remotest part of the country and power is the basic need to support such growth,” says Sanjib Mitra, Country Head Sales and Marketing-Transformers and Solar Solutions, Electrotherm (India) Ltd.

GST is helping integration of industry
“Business activities are on high speed track, the GST is helping total integration of the industry, in fact GST is the biggest game changer in terms of overall consolidation of industrial and business activities,” comments Mitra. The taxation has become more simple and traceable and thus helping industries to obtain right forecast of business. It seems, by 2019 it will bring the complete result of overall industrial growth in a countrywide platform and will further help industries to grow for more sales and service activities to perform smoothly. Symptoms of more and more investment in terms of capacity expansions and trade multiplication has already been initiated by private as well as PSU bodies which will further push the growth.

‘Make in India’ encouraged India’s manufacturing sector grow
Briefing about the major changes observed Mitra says, “Make in India is the most crucial initiative taken by Indian government which has encouraged India to grow in the direction of manufacturing sector. In recent past we see manufacturing industry has grown almost by 7 to 8 per cent on YOY basis across all sectors.”

In terms of transformers, Mitra observes, it has initiated a replacement market. He says, “Almost all process industries are increasing their annual capacity to meet domestic as well as export demand. The value chain in the country has seen an upscale in terms of overall capacity growth. Transformer industry also has grown to meet the rising demand and another important point noticed is the time scale.”
He adds, “The whole industry is almost rushing towards completing the additional power demand and evacuation to utilise the extra power for exceeding revenue targets. The accelerated demand has pushed forward the transformer industry by almost double fold in a very short span.”

Overall growth in terms of supply as well as services
Electrotherm (India) Ltd is able to meet up the ever rising challenge both in terms of high capacity transformers as well as quicker delivery. “Its quality delivery and goodwill of course helped it a lot to gain repeat orders from its clients. The demand supply chain is quite healthy in transformer business leading to overall growth in terms of supply as well as services. The raw material industry also grown together which inducted the overall market growth in the complete supply chain. The various components associated with transformers have also seen amplification in their respective area of business,” says Mitra.

Retain quality of brand
Electrotherm believes, while scale of growth helps an industry to position itself in the competition matrix very safely, it is quality supply which creates the value position in the market. The company has been focussing on quality of incoming as well as outgoing goods to have a complete quality control in each product line for achieving high degree of reliability on every deliverables. A team of trained service engineers assist customers to safely handle the high value goods at site and smoothly commission as per schedule. Cost of quality in transformer is very high as the product is an integral product and even a small failure inside the assembly can lead to a massive failure in the whole power network. Recently we have started offering special transformer protection and relaying system along with medium and high capacity transformers to initiate safety alarms and bypass system.
“A low loss transformer has been our ladder of growth. Initial investment remains high for low loss transformer design but because of low loss, the transformer coil remains sufficiently cooled in terms of unprecedented hotspot generation and hence insulation life remains intact which is the performance key for a transformer. Customers always prefer low loss transformers in terms of energy saving on a life time scale and thus evaluation is favoured,” concludes Mitra.