NUCLEAR Power Corp of India may team up with Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, the nation's biggest power equipment maker, to build turbines for atomic stations as the government plans to boost generation capacity by a third.
The joint venture will supply turbines for projects that the state-run monopoly nuclear generator had decided to build before India signed a nuclear accord with the United States last year to acquire technology and atomic fuel, S.K. Jain, chairman of state-run Nuclear Power Corp, said yesterday.
"We plan to source eight turbines of 700 megawatts each from Bharat Heavy and the best way to do this is through a joint venture," Jain said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg News in Mumbai. He didn't say how much the companies will invest in the venture.
The government plans to add 40,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity by 2020, a third of India's current total generation capability, to meet demand in the world's second-fastest growing major economy. To achieve the target, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must convince his communist allies and opposition parties to allow the accord with the US to be implemented.
"The joint venture will benefit Bharat Heavy by giving it a head start over international companies vying for orders once the nuclear deal is in place," said Dhirendra Tiwari, an analyst at Batliwala & Karani Securities Ltd. "The joint venture should add up to five percent of current revenue."
