Kawasaki Heavy Industries
Kawasaki started out as a shipbuilding company, originating in Tokyo in 1878 when Kawasaki Tsukiji Shipyard was established. The company has diversified significantly since then, and is now incorporated under Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd (KHI) with a company portfolio including motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, industrial plants, robotics, trains, and aerospace equipment and aircrafts.
The next venture for KHI is into the marine energy industry, having signed up to a berth at the Fall of Warness tidal test site in October 2011. KHI has been developing a tidal stream energy converter in-house since 2010 and plans to begin testing their device at EMEC in 2015. The multinational company is presently component testing in Holland, performing tank tests of a scale model, stress tests of blades and power train tests, as well as some component testing for its full-scale prototype.
The device will be a sea-bed mounted horizontal axis 1MW machine.
KHI are utilising a number of UK companies in the design and manufacture of their device and are looking at assembly and fabrications services based in the UK for the next stage of the project.
