Hivelm Industries, based in
Chennai, recently shipped its
patented 1,200kV isolator to
Power Grid Corporation of India. This
ultra high voltage isolator will be
employed at PGCIL's 1,200kV test
station at Bina in Madhya Pradesh.
Speaking from Chennai to Electrical
Monitor over phone, a senior Hivelm
official said that the isolator was
developed indigenously by the
company, without any external
technical collaboration. "It is a 100 per
cent Indian product," he noted. It is
learnt that Hivelm spent around Rs.4
crore on R&D activities related to the
isolator.
Elaborating on the product, the
Hivelm official said that while the
first isolator would be deployed at the
Bina test bay, another similar isolator
will also be supplied over the next
three months. Recalling the early days
of the product development, the
official said that when talks for the
1,200kV were in progress, there were
no readymade standards available
because an isolator of this rating never
existed in any part of the world.
Hivelm undertook the complete
activity from design to production.
It may be mentioned that Hivelm
also has to its credit pioneering work
on 400kV isolators. The Chennai based
outfit had supplied three
different types of 400kV isolators as
early as 1976. Isolators are devices that
completely de-energise a circuit and
are mainly used during repair and
maintenance of downstream
equipment.
Bina test station: PGCIL, in
partnership with around 35 Indian
companies, has embarked on building
a 1,200kV power transmission test
station at Bina in Madhya Pradesh.
This pilot project will set the future
for 1,200kV power transmission at the
commercial level. By current thinking,
this will be the highest voltage level of
power transmission, AC or DC,
deployed anywhere in the world. US,
Japan, China, Ukraine, Italy and
Russia have made progress in
establishing ultra high voltage AC
power transmission systems. It is
reliably learnt that China was
recently successful in establishing a
1,100kV UHVAC commercial power
transmission system.
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