Swiss tech leader firms up foothold in Bangladesh
Leading power and automation company ABB is being incorporated in Bangladesh as the Swiss company sees tremendous growth in the power and industries sector where it could play a major role.
“We have been present in Bangladesh since 1971,” says Bazmi R Husain, ABB's sub region manager for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal. “In 2003, we opened our own liaison office, and in 2008, we opened our own service centre. Now we are ready for the next chapter. We are opening our own legal entity.”
“Bangladesh is a country of 160 million people. When there are so many people, I see tremendous growth potentials,” says Husain in an interview with The Daily Star on Tuesday. He is on a visit to Dhaka as part of ABB's drive to strengthen its position in the country.
With a team of 30, new entity ABB Limited would carry on its existing business focused on providing innovative power and automation solution for the utilities, steel, cement, textiles, pulp and paper, chemical and oil and gas sectors as well as wide range of switch gears for general consumers.
The company that thrives on increasing efficiency in power and industrial technologies, now sees a surging business opportunity in power and industrial infrastructure given the government's plans to increase power generation to 15,000 megawatts from the present 6,000mw (installed capacity) within the next few years. The government's plan for metro rail also excites ABB.
While ABB does not manufacture power generators, its array of products range from power transmission to substations, automation and various new technologies offering energy saving equipment.
ABB has an aggressive plan in renewable power. “ABB is producing 300 gigawatts of renewable energy globally. In Bangladesh, our focus would be on solar photovoltaic and biomass solution. Besides, there is a big market for solar power converters.”
The company could additionally provide solutions for the grid for solar energy that would give voltage stability and smooth power supply between fluctuations caused by a cloudy day.
“ABB deals with the voltage side. We don't make wind or turbine or solar panels, but we provide grid equipment, switches and related machinery,” says Husain who has been with the company since 1981.
The company also provides power solutions for locomotives and metro rail. “We give turbo chargers for locomotives. ABB also implements electrification for metro rails that run on DC,” he says.
The Swiss company has also been leading in energy storage technology for long. In 2003, it installed the world's biggest multi-celled battery system in Alaska as an emergency backup for the American state's main power supply system. This battery can deliver a whooping 27 megawatts of power for 15 minutes (enough to power 10,000 households) or up to 46mw for a shorter period.
Husain also says: “Bangladesh is a power deficit country. It has a lot of policies in place to promote power generation. There could be some more policy interventions especially to make consumption more efficient or making energy conservation popular at all levels."
“Do you know that around 60 percent of the total electricity consumed by industries in Bangladesh is spent for motors or rotating machines?” he said, explaining the need to promote energy conservation.
ABB offers a low voltage drive that makes electric motors more efficient, says Husain, adding that it can save 30 to 50 percent energy and accordingly lower the power bills.
"It can be applied in existing machineries."
Some local industries have already installed the drive to make their rotating devices more energy efficient, he added. “The payback can take place within a year or less.”
“New regulation for higher efficiency motors can be promoted. Take a motor (or water pump) through its lifetime. The cost of buying a motor is only 5 percent of its total cost required to run it in its lifetime. The remaining 95 percent cost is for energy. Now if you set a new standard for more energy efficient pump, you spend a little more for buying the motor and spend less for the energy,” he added.
“Where there's consumption of electricity, ABB is there to make it more efficient. ABB has technologies for open-pit coal mine, oil and gas, transportation, pipelines or SCADA (control and automation system for power).”
In India, ABB recently got its biggest job of transmitting 8,000mw of power from Assam to Agra on a 2,000 km of AC-DC line. Husain explained DC is the preferred technology for long-distant power transmission as it has lesser system's loss than its AC counterpart. Seven to ten percent system's loss is natural in transmission.
The company that has more than a hundred years of experience is also investing in new power generation solution. Last year it invested in a power company in Scotland that is developing sea wave based generator. It has also invested in a German company that makes special lens to intensify solar energy to generate heat.
“We invest in startup companies with new technology,” Husain says.
ABB has operations in around 100 countries, with approximately 124,000 employees, and reported global revenue of $31.6 billion in 2010. It spends $1.3 billion annually for research and development.
Comments