Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) and Ningxia Yinxing Energy Co., Ltd. (Yinxing Energy) of China signed an agreement under which MHI will license its manufacturing technology of MWT100/2.5 wind turbine, which has a rated power output of 2.5 MW (megawatt), to the Chinese firm. In 2007 MHI licensed its 1 MW wind turbine manufacturing technology to the company, which was then known as Wuzhong Instrument Co., Ltd. Yinxing Energy has been seeking to obtain manufacturing technology of large-size wind turbines, which are expected to become the mainstream in the Chinese market, where demand for wind turbines is expanding sharply. MHI meanwhile has been aiming to boost wind turbine production under license in China. The agreement between MHI and Yinxing Energy thus meshes the needs of both companies.
MHI and Yinxing Energy have developed a close and friendly relationship since the technical licensing agreement on the 1 MW wind turbine – the MWT62/1.0 (also known as MWT-1000A) – and agreed on licensing of 2.5 MW wind turbine technology in order to progressively expand their collaborative framework. For the newly licensed MWT100/2.5, MHI enhanced power generation capacity of the 2.4 MW wind turbine, the company’s leading machine, and made modifications to suit the Chinese market while retaining features of the base machine, including durability in operations under gusty wind conditions, measures against lightning strikes and easy-to-transport design.
Ningxia Yinxing Energy is a subsidiary of Ningxia Electric Power Group Co., Ltd. (NEPG), a midsized electricity provider established in June 2003. Besides thermal power plants, which are the company’s primary power generation source, NEPG, which is based in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, also operates power generation facilities that employ renewable energies such as wind power and photovoltaic energy. Today NEPG is vigorously building wind farms and is the main customer for Yinxing Energy’s MWT62/1.0 machines. Yinxing Energy looks to supply the MWT100/2.5, the advanced 2.5 MW model, not only to NEPG’s wind farms but also to an expanding market throughout China.
Wind turbine installations are sharply increasing in China to accommodate strong electricity demand and, at the same time, address environmental issues. In 2009 the country newly installed wind turbines equivalent to 14,000 MW, making China the world leader in new installations and placing it third worldwide in cumulative installations: 26,000 MW at the end of 2009. As the Chinese government is encouraging introduction of wind power and targets more than 100,000 MW wind power generation capacity by 2020, the nation is regarded to be one of the leading wind power markets in the world.
In response, going forward MHI will continue to conduct aggressive marketing activities of its wind turbines, including licensing, in China’s buoyant market.