Grasim Industries Ltd, part of the Aditya Birla Group, has signed a definitive agreement to form a joint venture company (JVC) in India with Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen GmbH (MR) of Germany for the manufacturing and sale of composite hollow core insulators (CHCI) to serve the power transmission and distribution industry globally.
Aditya Birla Power Composites Ltd, the joint venture company, will set up a state-of-the-art CHCI manufacturing plant at Halol, Gujarat, a release from Aditya Birla Group said.
This joint venture brings together Aditya Birla Insulators (a unit of Grasim), the third largest global porcelain insulator player and Reinhausen Power Composites (a unit of MR), the second largest hollow composite insulator player globally, with over five decades of combined experience in the insulator industry.
ABPCL will build a fully integrated CHCI plant at Halol, bringing the latest technology for composite hollow insulators from Europe. It will serve the insulator requirements of Indian and global OEMs in the power equipment industry, helping them to enhance their product proposition for the T&D utilities worldwide.
The composite hollow core insulators business is the fastest growing segment of insulators. Their use improves the performance as well as safety of power equipment. This facility will be the first such large scale plant for this range of products in India and will be the largest such plant outside of China.
Commenting on the development, Kalyan Ram Madabhushi, CEO – Global Chemicals and Group Business Head – Fertilisers and Insulators, Aditya Birla Group, observed, “As an insulating solutions provider to power industry for over 50 years, this venture is a natural next step for Grasim to expand into the composite hollow insulator segment and we are happy to partner with the global quality leader in this segment, MR.”
According to Dr. Nicolas Maier-Scheubeck, CEO of the Reinhausen Group, “We look forward to expanding our presence to India, which is not just an attractive market but also a very competitive location for manufacturing such a high quality product. We are delighted to partner with such a large and reputed group, the Aditya Birla Group, for this venture, sharing our focus on quality and customer performance.”
Featured photograph shows a composite hollow core insulator, for illustration only (Source: www.reinhausen.com)
