Japanese car manufacturer Mitsubishi has announced it plans on investing £100m into a wind turbine plant based in the North East of England.
Mitsubishi has a keen interest in renewable energy as its iMiEV vehicle has shown, the development will also bring hundreds of jobs to the area.
Chief Executive Akio Fukui said that the company was looking at a number of sites in the region was reckoning on a timescale of around three years for the prototype. before mass production a year later.
The scheme which will be the first in the world to produce wind turbines of this size on a commercial scale was described by Tom Delay, CEO of the government backed Carbon Trust as:
a massive vote of confidence in the UK’s renewable sector. We are clearly now open for business and, importantly, we are now winning business. The green manufacturing revolution is now becoming a reality."
Environmentalists have said that the Mitsubishi announcement is especially notable as they are currently one of the biggest atomic engineering companies in the world, a spokesperson for Greenpeace said:
"If the market wanted a clear signal on which way the UK energy sector is moving, the manufacturer of the world’s biggest nuclear reactors has just sent it – and the answer is wind."
A Japanese Auto Industry group has confirmed that car sales within the country had grown by around 15% on the previous year.
The announcement comes on the back of news that the Japanese Government is ending subsidies on green cars from next month (September).
New registrations for vehicles which included cars,trucks and buses came to around 333,403, the 12th rise in as many months.
Mitsubishi recorded the highest increase in sales selling 7,137 units over the month which is an increase of nearly 32% from this time last year.
Despite this automakers are concerned that the recent flurry of sales has been due to the extension of the green car subsidy which was initially only due to run until March 2010, but was later extended. Some predictions even suggest that there could be a 30% drop over the years sales.
Japanese car manufacturers have also been heavily assisted by government grants and initiatives keeping sales at a solid level compared to the rest of the world.
The reason behind the huge growth in Mitsubishi sales in particular has been attributed to a strong market within China and the Japanese based company have said they are still on course for their predicted profit of $172 million (£100 million).
Due to the announcement shares in Mitsubishi Motors have also grown, adding 116 yen (90p) to share prices, a growth of around 1.8%.
Mitsubishi spare parts can be found through CarSpareFinder who will search nationwide breakers to find the part you need at the best price.
