Interview with R V Talegaonkar, President at CTR Manufacturing Industries Ltd.

CTR, a market oriented company CTR Manufacturing Industries Ltd., established in 1964, manufactures and distributes engineering and electronic products with manufacturing facilities at Pune, Aurangabad...

byTransformers Magazine


CTR, a market oriented company

CTR Manufacturing Industries Ltd., established in 1964, manufactures and distributes engineering and electronic products with manufacturing facilities at Pune, Aurangabad and Nasik in India.

We have recently built a state-of-the-art HV electrical lab, which allows us to conduct extensive tests to validate materials and the design of tap-changer applications up to 400 kV.

Our engineering is focused on market requirements, and the major global requirement today is for biodegradable green solutions, higher safety and economical solutions. This was well illustrated at a recent Cigre conference in Shanghai, where there was agreement that we are faced with a global recession. Economy is a major driver for technological advancement, and this is what engineers are required to understand and respond to. Together with our partners – our suppliers and our clients – we are working on major problems and developing greener, safer, and more economical solutions for transformers.

Partnership for advanced technology development

One such recent project was the development of two types of natural ester-filled tap-changers: the flange-mounted and the in-tank tap-changer, which was done with the support from Cargill, who provided the FR3 fluid for the experiments.

Some newly developed tap-changers by well-known manufacturers exorbitantly raise the final transformer price. While developing countries cannot afford such expenditure, we need an advanced technology which is cost-effective at the same time.

TATA Power also recognized this and encouraged the CTR research team to work on ester oil-filled on-load tap-changer. TATA Power and other utilities have come forward with advanced technology for green transformers in new tenders.

Our test lab was valuable for testing ester oil-filled on-load tap-changers and Cargill supported the project.

Extensive experimentation

Over the last two years we have been conducting extensive experiments, looking at the effectiveness of natural ester for the tap-changer application. As a result, we have designed two types of natural ester-filled tap-changers with the help of transformer manufacturers. There is no doubt the new technology will be accepted by the market. There are a lot of reasons why natural ester has already been accepted worldwide, but it is necessary to develop economical natural ester-based solutions. The tap-changer is a critical component for the transformer, and therefore the stability of the fluid in the tap-changer is very important.

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