National Test House to set up EV battery testing facilities in Mumbai, Kolkata

The transformer testing facility at Jaipur will be spread over about 10,000 square metre area and the project will cost around Rs 125 crore. “The government of Rajasthan has given this land virtually free, at a token amount of Rs 1. This is also something that is very-very essential in bringing down the transportation cost, which was otherwise making the testing very-very costly,” Khare said.

According to the officials, the transformer testing facility will offer testing facility for transformers with range up to 10MVA. Apart from transformer testing, other allied distribution and transmission equipment like current transformers, potential transformers, overhead conductors, high voltage XLPE cables, insulators, surge arrestors will be tested at this facility, the official said.

As per the official, at present, most of the transformer manufacturers from Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have to transport their transformers to Electrical Research and Development Association (ERDA), Vadodara, and Central Power Research Institute (CPRI) Bhopal/Bangalore for testing.

“This test facility will reduce the transportation cost and time taken in getting transformer samples tested. This will reduce the present queuing time in testing of transformers from months to a few days,” said an official statement.

Alok Kumar Shrivastava, who was also present on the occasion, said that as part of its new initiatives, the NTH will set up electric vehicles and their charging system testing facilities. Stating that EVs need testing and standardisation, he said that the NTH Mumbai and Kolkata regions will set up EV battery and EV charging system test facilities.

He also said that the NTH also plans to take new initiatives in the field of water quality and fertilizer testing.