“Power market is in crisis”

October 13, 2012 8:18 am

Commenting on the recent logjam resulted from misappropriation in coal block allocation and its impact over the performance of power sector; Sunand Sharma, Country President, Alstom India & South Asia said, “The power market is in a state of crisis and is witnessing its worst downturn in years”
Alstom is a global name in the world of power generation, how significant is the Indian market for your business?With the Indian power generation industry achieving a significant milestone in 2010/11 by recording its highest ever capacity addition, the outlook of the sector is redefined. The thermal sources of fuel continue to have a dominant share followed by hydro, other renewable sources and nuclear. Though the capacity addition is lower than the revised target of 62,374 MW set by the Planning Commission, we should commend the fact that it is two and a half times the achievement during the 10th Five Year Plan period. With government focusing on increasing the private sector participation in the total installed capacity to bridge its energy deficit, the power sector in India is definitely on the rise. The Government’s ambitious plans to add 90,000 MW by the end of 12th Five Year Plan further provides the opportunity for private players like Alstom to contribute towards the capacity additions.
With India’s emergence as one of the most promising and dynamic markets in Asia, for Alstom, the focus has definitely shifted to India. Alstom is keen to participate and contribute to the Indian growth story. We are also planning to make India our export hub for South Asian countries and West Asia in order to maximise gains from our expanded operations at the same time diversifying our client base. As part of the strategy, Alstom also plans to ramp up exports from its hydro manufacturing unit to more than 30% of its annual capacity to markets all over the world. Similar exercise is also planned for the other manufacturing facilities as well.
Is Alstom in India equipped enough to take care of increasing market needs?India is a growing market and offers plentiful opportunities because of its ever-increasing infrastructure needs. It is a top investment destination for the company given its inherent demand for infrastructure development. Alstom has recently won a number of contracts in India region, the prominent among them being the Euro 100 million order for Rawatbhata nuclear plant in India and the Euro 120 million order bagged by Alstom Bharat Forge Private Limited for NTPC’s bulk project. The gas-based project at Khulna in Bangladesh, Al Mansuriya project in Middle East etc. are the testimony of the growing importance of the India region in Alstom’s scheme of things. Alstom with its superior and diverse offerings across almost all fuel types, be it hydro, coal, gas, nuclear etc., and technological innovations make it ready to meet the varying needs of its customer as well as increasing market needs of the nation. We also want to focus on achieving leadership position in clean power – both in terms of efficiency and clean technologies. With the government emphasising on the need to up domestic capacities by building power plants with super critical and ultra-super critical technologies in order to reduce the coal requirement of electricity production, Alstom a leader in supercritical technology, is well poised to cater to the needs of the country. 

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