Power T&D, renewable energy generation and energy transition are some of the growth areas in the energy space for Siemens, according to the company’s MD & CEO, Sunil Mathur.
Addressing a media conference at the sidelines of Innovation Day 2024, Sunil Mathur said that as power generation, especially renewable energy, was growing at a rapid pace, power transmission & distribution (T&D) would also need to commensurately grow.
On the subject of hiving off the energy-related business of Siemens Ltd into a separate entity, Mathur explained that this was being done with a view to sharpening the focus. “Once we focus on the energy business, the opportunities would be greater,” Sunil Mathur felt.
It may be recalled that in May 2024, the board of Siemens Ltd approved the de-merger of the energy business into a separate legal entity “Siemens Energy India Ltd.” The process of de-merger, including the list of the new entity on stock exchanges, is likely to complete next year.
Responding to a specific query on HVDC technology for power transmission, the Siemens MD & CEO noted that Siemens was actively evaluating opportunities in this space. Tendering for HVDC-based power transmission projects, involving both LCC and VSC technology, is being witnessed and Siemens was looking at every opportunity on a case-to-case basis, the top official observed.
Siemens has been a longstanding contributor to the growth of HVDC-based transmission infrastructure. Most recently, it was involved in the building the ±320kV HVDC link between Pugalur (Tamil Nadu) and Thrissur (Kerala), which is an extension of the ±800kV Raigarh-Pugalur HVDC corridor.
On asked if Siemens was increasing its localization with respect to HVDC technology, Sunil Mathur noted that localization was an ongoing exercise at Siemens Ltd, and with respect to HVDC, the pace of localization will depend on the speed of upcoming HVDC-related opportunities.
Incidentally, the National Electricity Plan has projected that during the five-year period from FY28 to FY32, India would be adding around 33 GW of HVDC-based transfer capacity, which is almost equal to the currently existing capacity. India has not witnessed new HVDC-based power transmission infrastructure since the commissioning of the Raigarh-Pugalur link in around 2021.
Huge data, huge opportunity
According to Dr. Peter Koerte, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Strategy Officer, Siemens AG, who was also present at the media briefing, for a country like India there is a huge quantum of data in the industry and infrastructure space. This data comes from the millions of IoT devices. What is needed is to gainfully use this data to build better next-generation infrastructure. “We can design for the future.” However, Dr Koerte felt that the missing link in being able to effectively use this data was “simplicity”. There are thousands of factories that have legacy devices that are unable to “talk” to each other. This makes data analytics very difficult. It was precisely in such situations that Siemens Xcelerator comes of great use. Siemens Xcelerator, which was launched in India two years ago, is an open and evolving digital business platform that has integrated over 1,000 innovative technologies from more than 400 sellers globally, into the ecosystem. In India, Siemens Xcelerator has already built over 200 references.
Cybersecurity
When asked about Siemens’ offerings towards cybersecurity in the power grid, Sunil Mathur observed that most private utilities and even government utilities like Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) were looking closely at this area. Mathur explained that Siemens was equipped to conduct vulnerability and risk checks on existing grid systems and deploy software patches to prevent cyberattacks. The top Siemens official observed that cybersecurity was not limited to just control rooms, but extends right down to every device that is part of the grid. Devices are no longer “dumb”; they are transmitting data and hence can be hacked. “That is where we come in with our cyber-secure technology to ensure that the grid is absolutely safe,” Sunil Mathur summarized.
Featured photograph (source: Siemens AG) is for representation only
