Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) - a Maharatna Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) - is one of the largest engineering and manufacturing companies in India having prominent presence in sectors like power, defence, railways, aerospace, etc. At Hannover Messe 2023 (HM23), the company showcased its technological prowess and capabilities in the areas of heat exchangers, space-grade applications, industrial products, machine oriented learning application (MOLA) and nuclear power, among others. In this interview, Rakesh Rao spoke to Dr Nalin Shinghal, CMD, BHEL, to know more about the company's future growth plans and focus at HM23.

What is your focus at Hannover Messe 2023?
BHEL is coming to Hannover Messe after a long gap; last time we were here in 2016. This year, we are focusing on presenting our prowess as engineering and design manufacturing major, and are looking for collaborations for India and overseas markets.

What is BHEL highlighting at this trade fair?
We are looking to expand our footprint overseas as well as enter new areas. Hydrogen has been identified as one of the new focus areas and we are in process of setting up a Center of Excellence for it in Varanasi. At Hannover Messe 2023, we are presenting our wide range of portfolio and looking for partnership for business and new technologies.

At present, exports contribution to BHEL’s revenue is very low as we are focusing on project exports, which are sporadic. In order to increase our business from overseas markets, we are now reorienting our focus on product exports by building a steady portfolio of products.

Which end-user industries are driving the demand?
At present, 75 per cent of our business comes from power sector. We intend to bring it down to 50 per cent by expanding our foot print in other growing sectors.

With global companies opting for China Plus One policy, will it present new opportunities for BHEL?
Yes. We are looking for global partners who can leverage on BHEL’s strength and infrastructure capability for mutual benefit.

Recently, Recently, BHEL-led consortium won an order to supply 80 Vande Bharat trains. How is BHEL looking at railways as the potential market?
Indian Railways is modernising in a very big way. As BHEL has been traditionally strong in the railways, this presents big business opportunity for us.

How are you planning to tap the emerging energy segments like renewable, hydrogen, etc?
BHEL is already present in the solar energy space. We are the largest player in the floating solar segment in the country.

Hydrogen is considered to be the future of energy. We have been associated with power sector for many years and by using our engineering, manufacturing and EPC skills, we can explore new business possibilities in the hydrogen space. Given the ambitious hydrogen mission launched by our Prime Minister, it is a huge opportunity for us. As mentioned earlier, we are setting up a Centre of Excellence at Varanasi for developing products and technologies in the production and storage areas for hydrogen. We are looking at tie-ups for the same.

What are your growth plans for BHEL?
We are looking beyond our traditional markets (like thermal energy) for growth in the future. In the last three years, there was hardly any ordering in the thermal space. Only recently order for one thermal plant was opened and orders for two more plants are in the pipeline.

While we see a revive in the short to medium term in our traditional markets, we are also looking at diversification by expanding our product range & engineering solutions in other growing sectors like railways, defence, aerospace, coal gasification, etc. We are quite bullish about the market.