A Japanese venture between Toshiba Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. plans to use production plants in India, China and the US to expand sales of a key component for solar power generation.
Toshiba Mitsubishi-Electric Industrial Systems Corp. is building a second plant in Bengaluru in India slated to open in 2017. It already has a factory in Houston and two plants in China, one in Shanghai and the other in Yancheng.
The company, known as TMEIC, makes inverters for industrial- and utility-scale projects that convert the current flowing from solar panels into a form usable by national electric grids. The venture, which competes with companies such as SMA Solar Technology AG of Germany, is seeking to have the largest market share by 2020 in terms of sales and production capacity for units of 100 kilowatts or more.
TMEIC announced in March that its annual production capacity outside Japan will increase to 7 gigawatts by 2017 from less than 2 gigawatts currently.
By Baishakhi Dutta
