Eden Energy India (EEI), the wholly-owned Indian subsidiary of Australia’s Perth-based Eden Energy, has appointed Svam Power Plants to be a distributor for Eden Energy’s environmentally friendly and increasingly successful dual fuel system, known as OptiBlend. Svam Power is a major Indian dealer for engine major Cummins, and provides after sales support and total power solutions in northern India for gensets produced by Cummins for which mining is an important market.
Under the appointment, Svam Power will initially act as an Indian sales representative for OptiBlend kits for a training period of three months, to be immediately followed by an ongoing appointment as a distributor in northern India of Eden’s OptiBlend kits. Eden’s efficient dual fuel kit, designed and developed by Denver-based Hythane Company, Eden’s wholly owned US subsidiary, is capable of operating on a wide range of diesel engines, displacing up to 70% of the diesel fuel with natural gas. The use of natural gas greatly reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional diesel-only gensets and in places where natural gas is cheaper than diesel, will also reduce fuel costs for power generation. Cummins says it holds a significant share of the diesel Genset market in India, particularly in the OptiBlend target output range of between 500 kVA and 1.25 MW.
The appointment of Svam Power follows a significant increase in interest in dual fuel since the Indian Government recently implemented a progressive increase in the price of diesel fuel after the ending of a two year period when the price of diesel fuel was fixed. Svam Power will market OptiBlend kits through its large sales team in northern India, primarily to its extensive customer base of Cummins genset owners, and as a distributor, will then install and maintain the kits that it will purchase from EEI, which will manufacture the kits as well as provide on-going marketing and technical support. Svam Power, which has been a Cummins dealer in northern India for more than 32 years, has a current customer base of approximately 5,000 and who between them, own in excess of 15,000 installed gensets, almost 100% of which currently use diesel fuel exclusively.
Eden anticipates that in the size range of gensets that the company is targeting, there are perhaps 4,000 or more gensets that could be commercially converted to dual fuel as soon as competitively priced natural gas becomes available at their location. A number of these customers, including several multi-national companies that operate manufacturing facilities in northern India, already have natural gas available and have expressed interest. Additionally, natural gas is currently being rolled out in many cities across a number of states of India and over the next few years, it is anticipated that this cleaner fuel will become far more widely available, thus opening up a market for conversion to OptiBlend dual fuel kits.
The Indian Government also recently announced that it wanted to promote the exploration for shale gas and would shortly announce its policies for that, which energy analysts suggest will lead to commencement of shale gas exploration in India’s highly prospective shale gas provinces. Success would greatly increase the supply of indigenous natural gas, and could well also help to mute rises in the cost of natural gas compared with diesel price rises. India has only limited oil production and imports much of its liquid fuels for refining.