Quartzelec’s solutions for Asia’s Generation Plant

Quartzelec, the world-renowned electrical engineering group, is investing significantly in the Asian and Middle East region as part of its strategy of seeking new business opportunities in markets outside the UK and mainland Europe.

Today the company is one of the UK’s largest independent electrical engineering businesses and delivers design, engineering, manufacturing, installation and maintenance solutions to customers worldwide. Service delivery is based upon Quartzelec’s technical authority regarding HV rotating machines together with many years
experience of servicing and refurbishing machines of all major OEM manufacture.

Employing more than 500 people in the UK, Quartzelec’s clientele has grown from a number of highly-respected engineering names such as GEC, AEI, Alstom, and Cegelec. Clients are in a broad range of sectors and Quartzelec supports owners and operators of power stations, utilities, major processing and mining companies and both the offshore and onshore oil and gas business.

Quartzelec employs technical engineering specialists and has one of the largest workshop facilities in the
UK for the repair and service of rotating machines.

Why is Quartzelec investing in Asia?

Steve Cooper, Director, Power Generation, explained: “In carrying out a review of regions around the world we identified Asia as an evolving market. We could see that control was moving from the national generators to the independent power producers. This change in the structure of the market opens up more opportunities for other service providers like Quartzelec. Traditionally national generators have turned to OEMs to act as their service partners – now that’s changing.”

Why is Quartzelec a valued partner?

“Quartzelec has been involved with rotating electrical machines for over 100 years. Today we are no longer an OEM, however we have retained OEM expertise and know-how and being totally independent allows us to add significant value to our clients’ operations.”

“In addition we are cost effective and provide a fast response. We work with our clients and their engineers to help advance the understanding of their plant.”

“The history of our company has given us a unique understanding of machines in the Asian region, as we knew there were many machines that had been built at our UK facility which were operating in Asia.”

“Our exploratory visits to the region confirmed there was a need – and a demand – for a third party service provider as a viable alternative to the OEMs.”

What work have you been carrying out in Asia?

“One of the first contracts was for the overhaul of three 125 MVA ALSTOM generators in Malaysia. We have continued to meet and develop our relationships with both the national and independent power producers in the region which has resulted in other significant work being awarded to us.”

“We are currently performing the duties of owner/engineer, overseeing - on behalf of the owner - a significant package of work including a complete stator rewind of a GE 9ECH2, 212 MVA, 2 pole generator at 15.75kV with re-designed components in Rayong, Thailand. We were chosen for this work specifically because of our expertise in
generator design and repair.”

“A significant rewind on-site in Macau has also just been completed. Although these machines were horizontal, we utilized our hydro generator experience to develop a unique methodology to remove 16 from 60 rotor poles, turning the rotor to access sections of the stator, instead of employing the conventional technique of removing the rotor.
The stator diameter for these machines was around 9m.”

What is your commitment to the Asian region?

“We are continuing to assess investment opportunities so we can further enhance the service we can offer to customers in the Asian markets in particular for the ASEAN countries.”

“We already have UK ex-pat engineers living in the region providing local interface and support and we are currently looking at investing in workshop facilities within the region to further support our customers.”

“Singapore is opening up to us as we become better known in the region. We are very confident about our expertise within all traditional power plants such as thermal, combined cycle gas turbine, and hydro.”

“Our investment in the region includes having a presence at major power generation exhibitions. We have exhibited in KL and Bangkok and will appear at Singapore this year where we’ll be pleased to meet past, present, and – hopefully – future customers to discuss their requirements and any issues they wish to raise.”

What resources do you have available to support customers?

“We continue to invest in diagnostic and testing equipment, introducing a robotic inspection vehicle (RIV) to provide cost effective in-site inspection of large rotating electrical machines, enabling remote scanning and testing of the stator core with or without the rotor in place, reducing traditional outage periods.”

“From the UK our engineering team designs and engineers significant generator refurbishments including stator rewinds where replacement stator bars for machines up to 600MW are also manufactured in a totally new facility.”

Quartzelec Ltd
Leicester Road, Rugby, Warks, UK,
CV21 1BD
T: +44 (0) 1788 512512
E: steve.cooper@quartzelec.com
www.quartzelec.com