The Paris climate agreement is a good demonstration of 195 nations standing behind a common goal: to reduce global CO2 emissions. Although concrete steps are yet to be confirmed, there is a unanimous desire to work towards the same direction.
This is very much aligned with our views at The Switch when we formed our company nearly 10 years ago. We wanted to enable “the switch” in how people choose to use energy and how to produce the energy needed.
Now the entire world is committed to making the switch.
We will continue our quest for better technology for distributed energy and energy-saving solutions. Many of the electrical drive trains have remained the same for the past half a century. Now we see this as an opportunity. The momentum is there to offer advanced electrical drive trains, starting from the most obvious killer applications.
At the start of The Switch, we transformed the wind industry from using the three-stage gearbox in wind turbines into a simpler gearbox configuration. Our achievements cumulated in the FusionDrive™ as our flagship product, demonstrating our ability to innovate and ultimately eliminating the gearbox from our multi-megawatt direct drive trains.
The same transformation occurred in high-speed motor drive trains for customers like Runtech Oy. We were able to replace bulky, high-energy and high water-consuming pumps with our solution for vacuum pumps used in paper machines. This high-speed solution that gets rid of the need for water significantly reduces the footprint and energy consumption and offers better control of the process.
And the same transformation is now taking place for shaft generators used in marine vessel applications, where the gearbox and synchronized generator have been eliminated by inline permanent magnet generator and power converter. The weight and complexity of the system is therefore reduced. This solution allows the main engines of the vessel to run at lower speeds, saving fuel and reducing emissions.
Our record-high order book puts us in a stronger position to serve you better and create even better and smarter drive train solutions as we move forward. Now as part of Yaskawa, the solid support we have helps us implement our visions of a greener future.
We sincerely thank you all for your commitment to The Switch!
And wish you a peaceful, renewable holiday season.
Jukka-Pekka Mäkinen