A century and a half ago, Siemens, Europe’s largest engineering company, changed the face of global communication by laying a telegraphic cable from London across the North Sea and onwards to Calcutta, then the capital of India.
Next week, an Indian engineering company will proclaim its own feat of electrical engineering beneath the choppy waters of the North Sea in one of the marvels of the new age: renewable energy.
Crompton Greaves, one of India’s largest electrical engineering companies, is building, as part of a wider consortium, one of Europe’s largest and deepest offshore wind farm projects, 50 kilometres off the coast of Belgium.
The Belwind project is worth an estimated €900m investment, and is backed by the European Investment Bank. It will power the equivalent of 350,000 households with 330 MW of electricity. The first phase, the installation of 55 turbines, is expected to start supplying power in the coming weeks.
CG’s main contribution was to develop the system to ferry high voltage electricity from the wind farm to the electricity grid on land. CG, in partnership with Belgian companies Fabricom and Iemants, connected a substation out at sea to the mainland with a submarine cable at the cost of €50m.
The Belwind project was CG’s first venture into offshore wind technology. The company believes it’s the first of many, and considers wind power as a future “boom” market as European countries pursue renewable energy targets.
“The offshore substation is a big move for CG as we enter in the systems and solutions business of the European offshore wind energy industry,” Shravani Dang, an executive at the Avantha Group, CG’s parent.
The company’s ambitious drive into countries like Belgium, Hungary and Ireland is worrying some of Europe’s large engineering companies, who pride themselves for breakthrough technologies. And CG isn’t the only company snapping at the old guard’s heels. Other fast innovating companies from India and China, like Larsen & Toubro, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Delta and Neusoft are all increasingly competitive, and showing bold inventiveness in the process.
These companies are expanding their businesses in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. But they are also seeking opportunities in the developed markets of Europe and the US.
Crompton Greaves, which has a turnover of about $3bn, insists that it is no newcomer to Europe. It has made a number of strategic acquisitions in the region over the past five years that clearly declare a westward trajectory.
In 2005, it bought Belgium-based Pauwels, a multinational transformer maker. The following year, it purchased Hungary’s Ganz, a transformer and switchgear maker, and Microsol, an Ireland-based company that specialises in substation and distribution automation. Its latest acquisition was Sonomatra, a French power transformer maintenance company.
These are still baby steps, but the ambition is there to rule the waves.
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