Performance of DongFang Turbines in India

Subhendu - welcome to CR4.

I do not have any inside knowledge of this problem, and what is reported in various journals hardly seems to be unbiased journalism. So just some not too well informed comments. I was living in China at the time of commissioning so took some interest.

From the outset this project was very emotional (controversial), with Indian trade unions not wanting the tender to go to the Chinese etc. DongFang Electric won the tender against Indian, Japanese and European (French and others if I remember correctly) bidders. I can not remember all the details, but around mid 2008, Indian trade unions (or contractors) and the Chinese (DongFang) contractors came to blows in the control room and plant in some apparently very ugly and violent episodes. I understood that the plant was commissioned and handed over at this stage.

The latest that I have read seems to indicate that the units were transferred to DPL over a year ago and that the Maintenance Contract with DongFang had lapsed prior to DPL having problems with the unit. Due to the lapsed maintenance contract DPL seems reluctant to be of too much help, but this could just be biased journalism.

I know that there was talk of DongFang setting up manufacturing facilities in India, but am not sure that this was not stopped by the government.

None of this really answers your very broad question, I just want to point out that unless there is someone out there genuinely in the know, the only comments you are going to get will be based on very poor biased journalism and emotional comments about "Chinese" products. DongFang is a very large manufacturer with many steam turbines running, so they can do it properly. Whether they have or not in this case I have no way of knowing.

Thanks a lot. My interest was to know some background with a view to have some forward planning for other utilities who are going to run these power plants. I fully agree with you that Chinese equipment cannot be categorized in general as good or bad as similar 300 MW machines supplied by Shanghai Electric Corporation (SEC) is performing well albeit certain issues during commissioning stage.

Keep me posted if you come across certain inherent issues with DongFang Steam Turbines.

Regards