The Siemens Drive Technologies Division has received an order from Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) in India, to supply 60 gear units for coal mills. The state-owned, Indian utility company is planning to build and expand several coal-fired power plants. The new gear units will drive the vertical mills which grind the coal in these plants. The Flender gear units from Siemens consist of a bevel gear stage and a planetary gearbox. Their advantage is that higher torques are achieved by distributing the loads, ranging between 19 and 670 kNm, to the planet wheels. “Powerful, reliable drives are a key component in the coal grinding. With the optimal gear ratio, they continuously drive the vertical mills, in which the coal is ground to a very fine grain. BHEL chose the vertical mill gear unit from Siemens because of its very long service life and proven drive design. This is exemplified by over 4,000 worldwide references,” stated Siemens.
Bernhard Hoffmann, Head of Drive Applications at the Siemens Mechanical Drives Business Unit in Voerde, said: “With our powerful and reliable drives, we are making a decisive contribution toward the security of supply to Indian coal-fired power plants. By supplying such a large number of gear units at short notice, we are quickly helping our customer, BHEL, to expand power supplies in India.” BHEL, an Indian company, a leading constructor of power plant and energy equipment, is one of the largest enterprises in India, with its headquarters in New Delhi and a workforce of almost 50,000.