The company GLOBAL HYDRO ENERGY made a further step beyond its country’s borders by undertaking business activities in new export countries. India and Sri Lank are two of the countries with an enormous potential for small hydro power plants. In order to take care of these markets in the appropriate way, good contacts to local partners is essential.

The first contract for the supply of the entire technical equipment for the hydro power plant project BATTALGALLA in Sri Lanka was signed already in January 2003. The scope of supply contained a GHE-FRANCIS-Spiral turbine including penstock connection with butterfly valve as well as draft tube. The generator was delivered together with the turbine on a common steel frame completely assembled and ready for operation. This design allowed the plant owner and the GHE commissioning engineer to effect the installation in an extremely short period of time. The Francis runner was mounted directly on the generator shaft which rotates at a speed of 1500 min-1. The turbine was designed for an output of 100 kW and supplies mainly a local utility for a tea plantation in the Kelani-Valley. The excess current is fed into the public grid.
The opportunity to have in GLOBAL HYDRO ENERGY an overall supplier for the hydro power plant equipment was certainly for the client an important and decisive factor for placing the order.
For this reason GLOBAL HYDRO ENERGY also supplied the entire electro technical equipment in form of the digital turbine governor and low voltage switchboard. For hydro power plant sites situated so far away from the company headquarters (Niederranna/Austria) the application of the digital turbine governor GDTR-PC which allows a remote control is of a great advantage. Both the plant operator and the GLOBAL HYDRO ENERGY after sales service can simultaneously and at any time via modem interrogate the required information and if necessary take appropriate action in the operation of the plant.
This is of course of great importance and an enormous advantage for the plant operator specially in the initial phase respectively directly after the commissioning of the plant.

The official commissioning of the plant was for us Central Europeans a rather unusual and most interesting event. Since Sri Lanka is multicultural orientated the inauguration of the hydro power plant was performed by three priests of different religions (Buddhist, Christian, Hindu).

A further order for the supply of four FRANCIS-Spiral turbines to India was signed in June 2003. This order will supply two hydro power plant sites in the north-eastern state Araunachal Pradesh with two same sized turbines each. The acceptance by the client and the subsequent delivery of the equipment was effected end of the year 2003.