Insights on the innovative wind market in Japan

In April 2021, KEBA Japan celebrated its 10th anniversary and has doubled its number of employees and sales ever since. Our subsidiary in Japan mainly focuses on solutions for the industrial automation field, machine tools, robots, and plastics injection molding machines. Despite offering solutions for wind power generation for more than 20 years – mainly in Europe and China – we have now initiated our market entry into the Japanese wind sector as well.

Our participation in WIND EXPO (as part of World Smart Energy Week in Tokyo, Japan) at the end of September 2021 has given us new opportunities to gain insights into this exciting market.

Daniel Geißbauer, Vice President of Industrial Automation | Wind Power, shares his experiences and insights on this respective matter.

• What are the main businesses of KEBA Japan?

Currently, the majority of our sales in the Japanese market are generated with our solutions for industrial robots.

In terms of our core business, we supply our solutions to Japanese robot manufacturers on an OEM basis (Original Equipment Manufacturer). Due to our long-term experiences in the wind industry, especially in Europe and China, we are now also offering our solutions on the Japanese market.

• What is the purpose of your participation in the WIND EXPO Wind Power Exhibition?

KEBA has been developing solutions for wind power generation for more than 20 years, mainly in Europe, China, and other overseas markets. In the current Japanese market, there are no Japanese companies that manufacture wind turbines in-house. However, in light of recent trends, such as the "Vision for the Offshore Wind Industry," which calls for 10 GW by 2030, and 30 GW to 45 GW by 2040, including floating turbines, we are hoping that Japanese manufacturers will return to the wind turbine market, or that venture company will enter the market. We are convinced, that our products are perfectly designed to assist in this process.

• Please share your experiences of your solutions that are being adopted by overseas wind turbine manufacturers.

We currently have over 120,000 pitch units of our products in use worldwide, both onshore and offshore. We are developing control products that specialize in pitch control, which changes the angle of the blades of wind turbines and provides the main safety functionality of a state-of-the-art wind turbine.

• Which overseas wind turbine manufacturers do you supply?

We cannot answer this question, as we have signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with each company. However, the figures can give some orientation: Globally, we have provided more than 120,000 units of our products to dedicated manufacturing plants in Europe and Asia so far.

• Does KEBA have an installed base in wind power generation facilities operating in Japan?

We have a long history of working with manufacturers in Europe and the United States, and in fact, our products are used in several OEM turbines operating in Japan today.