Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, Japan's biggest heavy-machinery maker, on Wednesday said it plans to start mass-production of industrial-use lithium-ion batteries in late 2012.Demand for heavy-duty, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which can be used in buses and wind power generators, is growing fast amid environmental concerns.
Mitsubishi Heavy said the company is also interested in a scheme planned by Better Place, a California-based company building a global network of charging stations for the electric car industry.
Mitsubishi Heavy, which is also expanding capacity in its nuclear power business, said it would spend 10 billion yen ($100 million) to build a test plant for the production of lithium-ion batteries for use in products like fork-lift trucks, wind power generation and solar panel systems in 2010.
The plant, to be located in the company's Nagasaki shipyard in southern Japan, will have an annual output capacity of 400,000 medium-sized cells.
The company said it aims to start operating a mass production plant in late 2012 with an annual output capacity of 1.2 million cells.
Mitsubishi Heavy expects global demand for heavy-machinery use lithium-ion batteries to more than double to around $30 billion by 2015.
Source : REUTERS
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