Tecpro signs pact with Japanese major for better thermal power tech

Chennai: Chennai-headquartered Tecpro Systems Ltd has entered into an agreement with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Mechatronics Systems Ltd (MHI) of Japan for technology for manufacturing electro-static precipitators (ESPs) for thermal power projects.

With MHI technology, Tecpro will make the ESPs at its Rs 25-crore plant that is coming up in the Sri City industrial estate near Chennai. The tie-up could potentially result in business prospects of about Rs 500 crore a year, Tecpro Systems’ Chairman and Managing Director, Ajay Kumar Bishnoi, told Business Line today.

Electrostatic precipitators are nothing new in India —all coal-based thermal power projects here are equipped with them.

These are needed to trap and remove particulate matter from the exhaust gases from boilers. So what makes MHI technology any different?

Arvind Bishnoi, Director at Tecpro, observed that there were two major advantages to MHI technology. Typically, an ESP system costs Rs 50 crore. With MHI, the costs would be significantly lower and the size of the equipment much smaller. Second, emissions from their ESP systems will be contained well within the 30 mg/cubic nm norm.

Tecpro mainly offers coal and ash handling systems for thermal power projects. It also provides full ‘balance of plant’ solutions on turnkey basis. In 2012-13, the company was able to book orders worth Rs 2,552 crore. It has orders on hand of around Rs 4,000 crore.

The Sri City plant would be production-ready in a few months and Tecpro Systems has started offering its products from here. It has, for instance, participated in an NTPC tender for two plants of 800 MW each in the Garadwara project.

This is, incidentally, the second tie-up that the Japanese major has entered into with an Indian company recently.

Last month, MHI signed a similar technology agreement with public sector power equipment major BHEL for imparting know-how to make flue-gas desulphurisation systems for power projects.