Thermax forays into supercritical boiler space

Thermax, the Pune-based energy and environment solutions provider, is entering into manufacture of supercritical boilers in association with American firm Babcock & Wilcox (B&W).

The company on Wednesday said its joint venture with B&W would also make subcritical boilers of over 300 megawatt (mw). Thermax will hold a 51% stake in the JV and B&W the rest.

MS Unnikrishnan, managing director & chief executive officer, Thermax, said the initial investment in the JV would be about Rs 700 crore, with a debt-equity ratio of 1:1. Thermax’s equity contribution will be over Rs 175 crore. “We will set up a greenfield plant with a capacity of 3,000 mw per annum in phase-I,” he said, adding that the partners had shortlisted three locations for the plant.

“The plant will be commissioned in 18-24 months from the day we finalise the location, but we will soon start bidding for projects,” Unnikrishnan said.

Thermax has so far been putting in bids as part of a consortium with B&W. The company has been associated with the $2.8 billion B&W for over 20 years in the area of industrial boilers.
In 2008, Thermax signed a technology transfer agreement with B&W to make 100-800 mw subcritical boilers. But it’s only been making boilers up to 300 mw.

Unnikrishnan said that if the new plant is not ready in time for an order, the venture would make use of Thermax’s plants in Pune and Baroda, which are used to make industrial and subcritical boilers for B&W’s facilities overseas.

B&W has the distinction of making the world’s largest supercritical boiler with a capacity of 1,300 mw.

Super-critical boilers are more efficient and consume less fuel than sub-critical ones and in India are built in capacities of 660 mw and 800 mw.

With this venture, Thermax will be competing with the likes of Bharat Heavy Electricals-Alstom, Larsen & Toubro-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ansaldo-GB Engineering in the boilers space.

Most of the 100,000 mw of planned capacity addition in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017) will be through the supercritical technology.