Darkness At Noon

As a power-surplus India chases renewables, power equipment JVs are struggling to get fresh orders from mainstream coal-fired plants.

- P.B. Jayakumar

In April 2013, Praful Patel, then Union Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, came out with a ‘Vision 2022 for the Indian Electrical Equipment (EE) industry’, targeting production worth $100 billion by 2022. The 10-year plan also estimated that the domestic demand for power generation equipment (boiler, turbine and generator, or BTG) would increase steadily to touch $25-30 billion by that time. The assumption was based on plans to add around 88.5 Gigawatt (GW) and 93 GW during the 12th and the 13th Five-year Plans, respectively, mainly to coal-fired power plants. By FY2011/12, the Indian EE industry had grown close to ₹1.20 lakh crore ($25 billion), and the share of the BTG sector was about 25 per cent or $6.5 billion. To tap this opportunity further, as many as five BTG joint ventures (JVs) were also set up in the last decade where Indian corporate houses, including Larsen & Toubro, Bharat Forge, JSW Energy, BGR Energy Systems and Thermax, had invested heavily.

But the priorities of the government changed soon. The emphasis on wind and solar power generation and the decision to discourage new coal-fired thermal projects have landed the BTG sector in serious trouble. By 2016/17, the Indian electrical industry, including the BTG and the transmission and distribution (T&D) segments, dipped to ₹1,54,000 crore, according to data from Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers Association. Of this, the share of the BTG manufacturers was only 15 per cent or ₹23,100 crore ($3.5 billion). The JVs, too, are sitting on idle capacity due to lack of local orders. In order to survive, most of them now depend on orders from parent companies, JV partners and NTPC.

Grand Plans Go Awry