Vayu interview with Kishore Jayaraman, President, Roll-Royce India & South Asia
VAYU : How has Rolls-Royce’s relationship with the Indian Navy and Coast Guard evolved over the years?
RR: Rolls-Royce has a strong legacy partnership with the armed forces, including the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. Our Power Systems division’s MTU range of engines power several vessels of both Navy and Coast Guard, with service teams stationed at several locations along India’s coastline. Our engines are known for their high-power density and power-to-weight ratio, their compact design as well as their mechanical and thermal stability. We remain committed to serving the Indian Navy’s power needs with advanced technology product offerings and customised solutions. The Rolls-Royce MT30 marine gas turbine is a strong offering for navies and within twelve years of being in service, the MT30 has already become the engine of choice for some of the world’s most advanced naval platforms, including the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth Aircraft Carriers and Type 26 Global Combat Ship plus variants, the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship Freedom-class variant and DDG-1000 advanced destroyers, Republic of Korea Navy’s FFX-Batch II frigate, the Japanese Maritime Defence Force’s 30FFM frigate and the Italian Navy’s new LHD. We look forward to expanding our relationship with the Indian armed forces through our advanced technology platforms as well as customised power solutions.
VAYU : What are the power solutions Rolls-Royce is offering to the Navy and Coast Guard?
RR: As India grows to adopt an even more important role at regional and global levels, it is imperative that Indian Navy equips itself to play an increasingly important role in regional maritime security. Choosing the right propulsion system is a crucial decision and it has to be the right decision to ensure a ship will still perform as its systems and capability are upgraded throughout the operational life. We presented capabilities of the mighty MT30 marine gas turbine at DefExpo 2020. Derived from the Aero Trent engine family, the Rolls-Royce MT30 is the world’s most power dense in-service gas turbine, offering a superior power-to-weight ratio, generating up to 43MW from a 30-tonne packaged unit, including most of the auxiliary systems. Many factors have converged to lead to the success of the MT30 during its first decade, not least its aerospace heritage. This gives navies more power in less machinery space than alternative engine types, and offers ship designers much more options and flexibility in designing the naval vessels of tomorrow. The MT30 also supports the ‘lean manning’ concept by virtue of its ultra-low on-board maintenance requirement. Developed as futuristic technology and to meet the growing demand for electrical power, MT30 is operating or has been selected in all conceivable propulsion arrangements across seven ship types: mechanical, hybrid and integrated full electric, with power delivered to water-jets, controllable and fixed-pitch propellers, depending on application.
MT30 marine gas turbine engine
VAYU : What updates can you share about the MTU offerings for India?
RR: From our Power Systems Division, MTU engines currently propel and power many Indian Coast Guard and Indian Navy vessels. We offer a range of exceptionally reliable and efficient engines, power generation solutions, service solutions, automation systems and digital solutions to secure superior performance of MTU drives and systems. Our products find varied applications across commercial ships and naval vessels, construction and industrial vehicles, agricultural machinery, mining, rail and military vehicles as well as for the oil and gas industry. MTU systems today power the largest ships, the strongest tugboats and the biggest land vehicles and provide energy for the world’s most important missioncritical applications. We also offer a range of completely integrated hybrid ship propulsion systems under the MTU brand, consisting of internal combustion engines, electric drive modules, transmission systems, batteries, monitoring and control systems, in addition to other electronic components. The hybrid propulsion system offers the flexibility of being able to manoeuvre precisely using the electric motor, or to deliver a powerful bollard pull using the entire power output of the diesel engines and electric motors combined. The combination of diesel engines and electric motors, in addition to batteries will offer our customers significant benefits in a variety of marine applications.
VAYU : What partnerships does Rolls- Royce have in India in the naval sector and what are your plans for the future?
RR: India’s defence requirements are evolving, making indigenous development of modern defence hardware and technology top priority for the government. We recognise the needs of 21st Century India, and we have been working to strengthen the entire ecosystem for Aerospace and Defence in India, including supply chain, sourcing, engineering/ Research & Development and manufacturing capabilities. Currently, we have a partnership with Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers to assemble the MTU Series 4000 engines for naval vessels at the Diesel Engine Plant in Ranchi. We believe the future will be about collaboration to ‘Create in India’ with customised technology solutions for India’s power needs. Going forward, we seek to embrace opportunities to co-develop and comanufacture or the growing aerospace and defence sector with select Indian strategic partners. This will pave the way for a stronger ecosystem with further upstream and downstream value chains forming as a natural corollary. With strong supply chain partnerships and established engineering capabilities in India, we believe we are well-positioned to support such programmes and further help India’s ambitions of indigenisation in the defence sector.