Chennai/Hyderabad May 1: Power equipment maker Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (Bhel) will increase its research and development (R&D) spend to about Rs 900 crore over the next three years from Rs 464 crore during 2007-08. This increase is needed as the products and systems to be developed in the coming years would be technology-intensive, according to AL Chandraker, group general manager (R&D division), Bhel.

The company spent Rs 464.4 crore on R&D in 2007-08, which was an 94.3 per cent increase over Rs 239 crore last year. This is the highest so far and is over two per cent of the company's total turnover of Rs 21,680 crore. The R&D wing achieved a turnover of Rs 2,936 crore during the financial year 2007-08 through company-wide commercialisation of products and systems, he said.

During the last financial year, Bhel filed 175 patents to take the total number of patents and copyrights to 664, besides setting up the Centre for Intelligent Machines and Robotics at Hyderabad.

"We are now working on new areas like nanotechnology and ceramic filters," said Chandraker. It commissioned a gas-fired spray pyrolysis system to synthesise nano materials at its Ceramic Technology Institute at Bangalore. The R&D wing has developed a compact 65Kw permanent magnet generator to supply excitation power to 500Mw and 800Mw turbogenerators, he said.