Universal Cables unveiles EHV base for Rs 90 crore

Chennai, Mar 14 (UNI) Universal Cables Ltd, a Birla Group Company and leading manufacturer of power cables and capacitors, has unveiled an ambitious plan of setting up a manufacturing base for Extra High Voltage (EHV) cables at a cost of Rs 90 crore.

The company is planning to set up the base at Satna in Madhya Pradesh, start the commercial production in March and achieve a turnover of Rs 1000 crore by 2008-09, a company release here said.

The company has entered into a technical collaboration with VISCAS Corporation (a joint venture of The Furukawa Electric Company Ltd and Fujikura Ltd., Japan) to adopt the latter's cutting-edge Vertical Continuous Vulcanisation (VCV) technology to be introduced for the first time in India, it said.

EHV underground power transmission is the solution for meeting today's growing power demand of the power starved metro cities.

Underground power transmission systems require the highest reliability to ensure uninterrupted power supplies.

The EHV cables will be manufactured using in-house engineering expertise of the partners in system designing, cable jointing and installation which will meet the market requirements. The cable will be processed in most sophisticated and contamination-free atmosphere to produce the highest standard EHV cables of best reliability, the release said.

Universal Cables has already invested in matching test facilities, exceeding the specification demand to meet international standards.

Universal's EHV cables would represent a complete extra high voltage cable solutions in underground power cable transmission systems involving design, manufacturing, cable laying and jointing and installation. The Indian base will have the capability to manufacture XLPE Cables of upto 400 KV, it added.

UNI