Gearboxes for turbines

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is to establish a joint venture company with Ishibashi Manufacturing in Fukuoka, Japan to manufacture and sell gearboxes for wind turbine generators.

Plans call for the joint venture to build a new plant adjacent to Ishibashi's main plant in Nogata City, Fukuoka Prefecture, in western Japan.

The new facility will be used to manufacture gearboxes for the MWT92 and MWT95 wind turbines, which both have a rated power output of 2.4MW. Production of the gearboxes will begin in 2010.

Ishibashi, which designs, produces and sells industrial-use gear reducers and gearboxes for wind turbine generators, has been conducting joint development activities in gearboxes for wind turbines with Mitsubishi since 1999. The company already supplies Mitsubishi with gearboxes for its 600kW, 1,000kW and 2,400kW wind turbines.

To meet the strong demand for its wind turbines, Mitsubishi is also expanding production capacity at its Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works and Yokohama Dockyard & Machinery Works. The company has already increased the capacity of its manufacturing facility at VienTek in Mexico, which makes wind turbine blades for the North American market.