Having recorded the highest-ever turnover of Rs 34,050 crore, Bhel has spent 2.3% of the company?s turnover on R&D, which amounts to Rs 788 crore. With this, the Corporate R&D unit in Hyderabad has achieved Rs 6,334 crore during 2009-10 through products and systems developed in-house, as against Rs 5,300 crore achieved last year. In fact, Bhel is one among the four Indian companies figuring in ?The Global Innovation 1000? to be ranked for its record expenditure on R&D. The R&D spend is expected to go up from the present level to 5% in the next four to five years.
The Corporate R&D unit has been involved in specific product development in the field of power generation, transmission and utilisation. As part of an MoU with the government of India, Bhel has developed new products and applications for power generation. Some of the specific initiatives include development of super critical and ultra super critical power projects, according to HS Jain, GM-in-charge. Plant specific training simulators were designed for Khaperkheda and Bhusawal thermal power plants. Besides, performance analysis, diagnostics and optimisation packages were also developed for hydro electric projects at Sewa and Parbati.
Further, the unit it is now developing a centre for Nano Technology and centers of excellence in areas of machine dynamics and compressor & pumps. The Centre for Nano Technology is being developed at a cost of Rs 8.27 crore, and it is expected to be functional by June 2011. It would make Bhel future-ready in the super critical regime.
Some of the other centers of excellence include Centre of Excellence for Machine Dynamics, which is being set up with an investment of Rs 7.21 crore and Centre of Excellence for Compressors and Pumps for Rs 9.9 crore.
Meanwhile, the unit has received a LoI from APGenco for design, engineering, manufacture, supply, erection, civil works, testing and commissioning of phase shifting transformer for its Kothagudem thermal power station. The value of the contract is Rs 27.08 crore. Besides, it has got orders from Naval Science and Technological Laboratory, Visakhapatnam and from Defence Machinery Development Establishment, Bhopal . On the patent front, the Corporate R&D unit has filed 263 intellectual property right (IPR) applications. The applications comprise 133 patents and 130 copyrights. With this addition, it has filed 1,100 IPRs till date. According to Jain, the unit is planning to file over 400 IPRs by 2012.