No. 59: A British wind generator maker is coming to Japan (June 20, 2012)

Business trend

Evans Wind Turbines, a British small-sized wind generator maker, will develop the market in Japan in alliance with Zephyr. The company has 30% share in the small-sized wind generator market in Great Britain. Zephyr will collaborate with Evans and build Evans’ R9000 that has an output of 5 kW as Evans’ original equipment manufacturer.

The price is not decided yet, but will supposedly be around several million yen. The R9000 can be featured by few troubles because of the simple structure to spin windmills. Zephyr will sell Evans’ product not only in Japan but also in the Asian region. It plans to sell 200-300 R9000s in the next three years.

Wind generation has several advantages over photovoltaic generation despite the higher initial investment: 1,500,000 yen vs. 520,000 yen. The former can generate as long as wind exists, whereas the latter can generate only during daytime hours. The former has annual generation per kW of 1,460 kW/h, whereas the latter has annual generation per kW of 1,000 kW/h. What is more, the purchase price of wind generation is 57.75 yen per kW, whereas that of photovoltaic generation is 42 yen per kW.

In Japan, the small-size wind generator is defined as a generator with an output of less than 20 kW. At present, 75% of small-sized wind generators installed in Japan have an output of less than 1 kW because nearly all installed small-sized generators are for generation only for internal use. As of the end of 2010, 9,500 small-sized wind generators were at work, only 2.5% of which were connected to the power network of an electric power company. 

R9000 wind generator from Evans Wind Turbines of Great Britain