Diesel engines from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in China

In recent news there was an investment by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in China.

Announced in the media and on the MHI website.  Mitsubishi has formed a joint venture with the Shanghai Diesel Engine Co.

The engine range is from 500kW to 1600kW.  To me this means the six-cylinder engine model S6R as well as the 12-cylinder models: S12A2, S12H, S12R, and S16R.

Why form a joint venture in China?

The goal of this JV with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in China is to manufacture diesel engines for the domestic Chinese market.

I think this is a smart move by MHI to form this joint venture for a few reasons:

• The Chinese market for power generation is exploding
• The government is promoting distributed power generation
• Diesel engine market is projected to grow 100x by 2015 !!
• The Chinese market is highly protected and requires equipment manufactured inside the country
• The MHI engines are heavy duty and well suited to continuous duty paralleling the electrical grid
• It is likely the MHI design would have been ripped off and used in China anyway if a deal wasn’t struck
• MHI engines will be more available to generator-set packagers in China.  I believe that this will be be a growing export in the near future
• SDEC is highly connected to industry in China, being affiliated with the largest automobile manufacturer there, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation
• SDEC already has a massive sales and service network throughout the country
• SDEC is already a manufacturer of diesel engines under 500kW

My interest in following Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in China are two-fold.

Professionally, I work extensively with MHI engines in the industrial diesel power, natural gas power generation, and marine tugboat power industries.

This is an incredibly durable and heavy duty engine with very conservative power ratings.  I very often specify and package their engines into prime power applications without hesitation.

Mitsubishi is an incredible and diverse company and I have enjoyed visiting them in Sagamihara, Japan.

Second, I am interested in exploring the Chinese gen-set packaging industry.  It is likely to be a strong player in the export market if enough attention is payed to quality.

I will be watching the activities of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in China with interest.