Elecon Engg opens gear box service centre

Madurai: Emtici Engineering Ltd, the marketing and services arm of the Gujarat-based Elecon Engineering Company Ltd, which is a pioneer in the manufacture of bulk material handling equipment in the country and marketing of wind turbine generators (WTG), has set up its WTG gear box service centre at Kunnathur village on Tirumangalam-Tenkasi national highway, near Madurai.

The facility is coming up on a site of 5 acres with an investment of Rs 4 crore, capable of handling 300 gear boxes of up to 2 MW range in two years, according to Mr Vilas Kalyankar, Chief Executive Officer, Gear Division, Elecon Engineering
Till now, the gear boxes were taken to the main workshop at Vidhyanagar in Gujarat for servicing but the establishment of the new facility would help reduce time and distance in attending to these needs. The location has been selected to be nearer areas where windmills operate.

Tamil Nadu alone has around 7,000 windmills.
Standby units would be provided while servicing is done, he said speaking to Business Line.

For 2008-09, a specific investment of more than Rs 100 crore for windmill gear box facility is contemplated. A tie-up with Renk, AG of Germany — to design and manufacture gear box for vertical rolling mill to be used in cement and coal industry — is under consideration, he said.

In response to a query, he said the company had a market share of around 35 per cent in the lower end of the gear box market. There are plans to manufacture WTG gear boxes up to 2MW range.