Kindly take us through the journey of SCOPE in India so far.
SCOPE was established in 1988. From the early days, we have been an R&D driven company which was customer focused. Our R&D was able to develop new products by having close interactions with our customers who trusted us and placed constant demands and challenges in front of us. Our innovation in testing & integrating solutions for power sector is now being acknowledged in more than 40 countries across five continents. Through our earnest desire to serve power sector better, we formed a company named ISOSCELES Sales & Service Pvt Ltd in 2006 that has tested a few hundred substations till date all over India. We are testing & commissioning GIS & AIS substations of upto 1200kV. Recently, we have also started taking O&M contracts from utilities. We have also diversified into the protection side of power systems and have begun providing CRP & SAS solutions since 2008. Progressing further, we now have our own SCADA, OMS & DMS platform. SCOPE has been firm believer of providing “Simple solutions for difficult measurements®”
What are the trends in Indian Electric Test & Measurements instruments market? What kind of transformations have you witnessed in Indian Electric Test & Measurements instruments market in the last decade?
In past three decades we have been observing continuous change, but changes that have taken place in the last decade have been humungous. To make it simpler, these changes can be compared to the changes in the mobile handset in India which changed from alphanumeric keyboard to touchscreens from simple telephony to app driven facilities. Similar is the case with the T&M market. Measurement market and customer expectations are becoming more demandnig day by day. We have seen measurement going wireless from wired measurement. Products which were operated from on-board display, are being passed over by those that can be operated from laptops for more safety and compatibility. New technology has helped some of our products shed their weight by almost 50%. Products like CRM & SCOT now weigh only 5 kg and also have a module for operation through a laptop.
Earlier, test instruments were expected to give only test results and then engineers would analyse the results and conclude the health of the Device Under Test (DUT), but now customer demands for an instrument which not only tests the DUT but also analyses the test performed. Some instruments can also do trend analysis using data from tests conducted earlier. Nowadays Artificial Intelligence and IoT have begun appearing in products – this will certainly help customers in better Asset Management.
Due to scarcity and cost of downtime for testing, customers are now prefer online measurement to offline measurement. SCOPE has a few online solutions like SA 30i+ as of now, but we would be developing more and more such solutions in the near future.
What are the products offered by the company and in particular catering to Indian energy markets? What are the growth drivers for your products? What are your major customers in India?
SCOPE is now more than a product manufacturing company, we currently provide contidion monitoring products from our T&M Division for Circuit Breakers, Transformers, Lightning Arresters, CT-PT, Relays, Towers etc.
Whereas from our Protection Division we offer products and solutions which would help customer for better asset management through CRP & SAS solutions, Controlled Switching Device for CB operation which can enhance the life span of CBs. SCADA, DMS OMS solutions from SCOPE will further enhance the ease of operation for Smart Grids.
Our primary growth driver has been: “Innovation with Value Proposition”. We owe our growth to our customers to name a few:
• Powergrid Corporation of India
• NTPC
• State Utility companies
• Railway
• Tata Power, Adani, Reliance, L&T…..
What technological innovations would you incorporate in your products for making them more superior and efficient?
As said earlier we are R&D based company and we strive to develop best-in-class products with technological innovations. Latest innovations from SCOPE will be witnessed shortly, but in the meanwhile, allow me let people know through your medium what we have achieved:
• Measurement of Electrical Parameters in hazardous environment of 765 kV substations.
• Using Capacitor Discharge technique to generate constant 100 AMP current for measurement of Contact Resistance.
• Assessing condition of CB contacts without opening the Interrupter.
• Connecting legacy IEDs directly in SCOPE Action.Net SCADA for transmitting substation data to SLDC using IEC 101 / 104 protocols.
How would you envisage the growth with particular emphasis on energy efficiency and sustainability in global energy markets?
India is adding 175 GW of renewable energy from solar, wind & bio-gas by end of 13th Plan. This is expected to lower the generation cost of electricity. We have to focus on developing hardware and software for getting 100% visibility of these generators in terms of their availability, condition and real-time electricity generation.
• We look at increased use of analytics to derive meaningful pointers which would help us in
– Condition Monitoring of Assets
– Energy Generation Vs Consumption
– Using Demand Side Response to balance the grid
I envisage encouraging growth in Indian and good sustainability in global markets.
What are your expansion plans in India with the government’s ‘Make in India’ program? What potential do you foresee for your company with the Indian Government’s focus on development of infrastructure like smart cities, roll out of power projects, etc?
• We have always been a ‘Make in India’ company.
• We are expanding our manufacturing capacity to meet increasing demand.
• Investing almost 10% of our revenue in R&D to develop new technologies and solutions.
• We foresee good business potential form Smart Cities and roll-out of new power projects.
