Against the backdrop of a changing global environment for electric power, including acceleration of efforts toward achieving carbon neutrality, the companies will consolidate their technology and assets by integrating their power generator businesses, further strengthening their competitiveness in the market.
The two firms agreed in principle at the end of last year to integrate those businesses. Last month, on May 29, they announced that they had signed a definitive agreement on that very day specifying the terms and conditions.
From now on, Mitsubishi Electric will establish a preparatory company, a 100-percent subsidiary, to align and continue the thermal, nuclear and hydropower businesses of each company. Equity in the joint venture will be 51% Mitsubishi Electric, 49% MHI. The new company will be established in Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture.
In a corporate strategy briefing for the press and investors, also on May 29, President URUMA Kei of Mitsubishi Electric put “carbon neutrality” at the top of a list of issues the company will have to focus on in order to realize sustainability. He emphasized that Mitsubishi Electric would fulfill its corporate responsibilities, including strengthening efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Executive Officer TAKAZAWA Noriyuki of Mitsubishi Electric said that the company’s growth strategy in the area of infrastructure businesses included the pursuit of strategic cooperation with partners overseas.
In 2022, Mitsubishi Electric signed an agreement with Holtec International of the United States to provide design engineering for the digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems of Holtec’s small modular reactors (SMRs).
As part of a strategy for “re-establishing production and business infrastructure to cope with a changing market,” Takazawa explained the establishment of the joint venture with MHI. He also said that remote work is becoming more established globally, and that the company would optimize its production systems also in transportation, where investing has been restrained, and in the transformer business, where competition is intensifying.
