As of March 1, 2018, The Switch belongs to the Yaskawa EU (YEU) organisation and will head up its Environmental Energy Division as of the same date. This will be the third official division within YEU – alongside Drives Motion Control and Robotics.
The Switch’s role in heading the Environmental Energy Division will be to take care of the business in its selected areas of wind, marine and turbo/industry applications with its own sales force and in closer cooperation with Yaskawa’s System Engineering Division in Japan. In addition, The Switch will strengthen its direct sales force in Europe. Yaskawa Corporation is making a multimillion-euro investment to strengthen the company’s R&D capabilities and in new equipment at The Switch factory in Lappeenranta, Finland, which will serve as a test center for advanced drive trains up to 15 MW. The vital brain power behind the new Environmental Energy Division will come from creating a network of R&D talent within all the existing sites of The Switch in Lappeenranta, Vaasa and Helsinki, Finland, as well as Norway, China and Japan. The Switch will have full responsibility for developing its converter, power module and machine products according to its mid-term plan.