Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Europe GmbH (MHPSE) has announced that it will be realigning its business strategy and reducing job numbers. MHPSE said that this was a result of the challenging market situation for power plant engineering.
MHPSE has started talks around job losses and streamlining of the organisation while seeking to alleviate hardship. This process will take place in spring. With the decline of the market for new thermal power plant constructions in Germany and Western Europe, the number of jobs will be reduced by more than a third.
Rainer Kiechl, CEO of MHPSE, said: “The energy turnaround has led to a structural rupture across the entire traditional power generation industry. In part, we managed to shield ourselves from it by tapping markets in Poland and South-East Europe. But even this could not fully offset the almost complete disappearance of our core market. We also invested early on in new technologies, such as energy storage, which ideally supplement volatile renewable energies. We have developed a long-term strategy to take us through the next years. An adjustment of personnel numbers consistent with alleviating hardship is regrettably unavoidable in the current situation.”
The company said that it will in future concentrate chiefly on plant optimisation, power plant service, air quality control systems, and innovative products and approaches. Kiechl said: “We remain a centre of excellence for power plant engineering within the global MHPS network. Our aim is to become a leading European company for CO2 emissions reductions in the field of power production.”