Britain and India are about to signal an inter-governmental settlement to collectively develop built-in full electrical propulsion (IFEP) for 4 massive amphibious ships deliberate for the Indian Navy.
The settlement would help India’s long-delayed touchdown platform dock (LPD) programme whereas giving GE Vernova a foothold in one of many world’s fastest-growing naval markets. It follows a Assertion of Intent signed in Portsmouth in November 2024 and the implementation of an association agreed when the 2 prime ministers met in Mumbai in October 2025.
A fourth assembly of the Electrical Propulsion Functionality Partnership joint working group, held in Goa in the course of the go to of the HMS Prince of Wales provider strike group, helped set up the define of an industrial framework. At its centre is a proposed partnership between GE Vernova’s Energy Conversion enterprise, primarily based in Rugby, and state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Restricted (BHEL). Collectively, they’d construct India’s first land-based check facility for IFEP.
The power would permit the whole electrical system to be examined and de-risked earlier than set up on the primary LPD. That is significantly necessary for giant electrical ships, the place issues can emerge from the interplay between energy technology, distribution and administration programs quite than from the propulsion motors themselves.
GE Vernova’s Energy Conversion enterprise (saved from possible closure in 2019), working below earlier names together with GEC Alsthom, Alstom and Converteam, has equipped electric-drive programs to the Royal Navy for the reason that Sort 23 frigates have been constructed with a mixed diesel-electric and fuel propulsion plant. GE says its programs now equip greater than 90% of the RN’s main ships. The corporate additional strengthened its export credentials in 2025 when it was chosen to produce propulsion programs for Singapore’s Multi-Function Fight Vessels.
For India, the instant prize is progress on a strategically necessary amphibious functionality. On 23 October 2025, the Defence Acquisition Council started the procurement course of for 4 LPDs at an estimated value of ₹33,000 crore (equal to roughly £2.8 billion). No contracts have been positioned but however Larsen & Toubro, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, Cochin Shipyard and Hindustan Shipyard are anticipated to compete for the development programme, doubtlessly in partnership with European designers together with Navantia, Naval Group and Fincantieri.
India first specified the LPD requirement in 2006 and issued a young in 2013, however that competitors collapsed in 2020. The Indian Navy now has only one ageing LPD. The ship supplies restricted amphibious and sealift functionality however stays a stopgap till the deliberate four-ship programme delivers a contemporary and considerably bigger drive.
The brand new LPD requirement requires ships roughly 220 metres lengthy with a displacement of round 29,000 tonnes. They’re anticipated to characteristic multi-function and air-surveillance radars, a combat-management system, IFEP, touchdown craft and the power to function mom ships for uncrewed floor, underwater and air autos. The ships would considerably broaden India’s capability to conduct amphibious operations, humanitarian help, catastrophe reduction and long-range naval deployments. They’d additionally present command-and-control platforms for more and more networked operations involving unmanned programs.
For Britain, the programme, value round £250M, deepens defence cooperation with an increasing Indian Navy that goals to achieve 200 ships by 2047. It might create alternatives for each GE Vernova and Rolls-Royce, whose MT30 fuel turbine is already being packaged in India with Hindustan Aeronautics. The undertaking nonetheless faces the acquainted dangers of Indian defence procurement. The IGA has taken 21 months to progress from the unique Assertion of Intent, the shipbuilding contract has but to be awarded and the primary vessel is unlikely to enter the water earlier than the early 2030s.
